


what stays and what fades away

by ineffablelouis



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Homophobic Language, M/M, Minor Violence, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 11:40:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4834016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineffablelouis/pseuds/ineffablelouis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If Liam could go back to that moment, he would take that secret and all the rest of them that they had buried when the moon was high and the thrill of being young was buzzing through their veins, and he would say Yes, H, of course I'll move in with you, as easy as that. And they would put the couch cushions on the floor like they did when they were thirteen, feet hanging off the edges and toes tickling the floor.</p><p>If he could go back, he would wake up on Harry's living room floor, Harry curled up between his arms, his head resting near Liam's shoulder, and Liam would go out and buy vases and put their secrets in the sunlight on the windowsill, and the war would never find them, and they would never grow up before they had to."</p><p>A Winter Soldier AU featuring Liam as Captain America, Harry as the Winter Soldier, Louis as the Black Widow, and Niall as the Falcon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kiew](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiew/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Kier! I'm sorry this fic came months late, but as you can see, it got a bit bigger than I expected it to. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> Thanks to Nicole outofcases for cheering me on to write this!
> 
> The title is from No Light, No Light by Florence + the Machine. Chapter titles are from the brilliant poem "Start Here" by Caitlyn Siehl.

_Watch how he prays like he is learning his first words._

 

Liam's not sure his life really begins until he meets Harry.

He's the new kid in school, he's _always_ the new kid in school, ever since his dad died and his mom's had to chase jobs across the country. He hasn't been in one school for longer than a couple months since he was seven, but his mom _promised_ they were staying this time, so he's been trying, honestly- but no matter what he does, he can't seem to make friends. Plenty of enemies, though. As usual. He's always been small for his age, and as frail as he is, it would be easy to give up, to curl up on the ground and accept the beatings, accept that he would never be more than a constellation of cuts and bruises.

But then he finds Harry. Harry from his year, six months younger than him but so tall Liam thought he was a grade above the first time he saw him in class. Harry with the soft curls, Harry who all the girls have a crush on. Harry, who helps him off the ground after a particularly bad fight, one hand outstretched, green eyes full of concern.

"Does this happen often?" he asks. He insisted on walking Liam home because he thinks he has a concussion, even though Liam keeps telling him he's fine.

"Not really," he lies, because he's embarrassed, for some reason. Because Harry's looking at him like he feels sorry for him.

"Your problem is you keep getting back up when they tell you to stay down."

He says it like someone who knows from experience- or maybe Liam is just desperate for someone to understand him, after being alone for so long.

So he asks, "Did they beat you up, too?" and Harry laughs.

"I'm the only boy in seventh grade who bakes and sings. 'Course they did."

"So how did you make them stop?"

Harry shoots him a lazy smile, and he can't help but notice the deep dimples in his cheeks. "I'm also the only boy in seventh grade who boxes."

Liam gives him a side-long glance as they walk, notices the muscles peeking out from under Harry's shirtsleeves.

Harry stops walking and faces Liam, those green eyes serious now. "I'll talk to them," he promises. "I can make them leave you alone."

It's a kind offer, but it would never fix the problem. Postpone it, maybe, until he's in high school and a fresh set of bullies comes along.

"Can you teach me to box?" He blurts it out without even realizing the idea's in his head.

It's Harry's turn to study him now. He knows what he's seeing- tiny Liam, with his round cheeks and pale face and stringbean arms. He feels his cheeks warming as Harry considers him.

"Nevermind," he mutters. "It was just-"

But Harry interrupts him. "We'll start next week," he says, and just like that, Liam has a friend.

They practice together nearly every day after school for months in Harry's room. Once he's taught Liam everything he knows, he gives up on boxing, says he'd rather have his hands in oven mitts than gloves. Liam's worried that's the end of them, that Harry's fulfilled his good samaritan duty and now they'll go back to being strangers, but then Harry invites Liam over to show him a new camera he got, or to go see a movie, or just to talk, and one night Liam realizes with a private smile that Harry actually, really, genuinely _likes_ him.

Liam sticks with the boxing, even after all the bullies have learned to leave him alone. It helps him focus, gives him something to work on, and even though he tires too easily, even though he never really gets _good_ at it, not like Harry is, he can master the technique. He knows how to throw a punch now, even if there's not much strength behind it. He knows how to stand up for himself, even if his body won't comply with what his brain is telling it to do.

He gets into a lot more fights after his lessons. It's not that he likes fighting, not that he wants to hurt people, but his dad was in the army to protect people, and he taught Liam to be a protector, too. He has to stand up for the people who can't stand up for themselves, or else what's the point of him learning to box in the first place?

And Harry's always there if he needs him. He says he doesn't want to fight anymore, but it's not something he can just unlearn. He always shows up right when Liam needs him, and usually he can scare someone off with just a Look, but he'll stand between Liam and a fist if he has to. He's used to it.

"Sometimes I think you _like_ getting punched," Harry says after practically carrying him home from a fight one night. They're sitting on the sofa at his place, Harry carefully wiping away the blood from the corner of Liam's temple with a damp cloth. "What did he do, anyway? Make fun of your haircut? Tell you the movie was terrible?"

Liam forces a smile. "Something like that, yeah."

They had gone to see The Wizard of Oz, because Harry loves the book. The movie was great, and Harry's grin after it ended lit up the whole theater. When it was over, he pulled Liam toward him and gave him a sloppy kiss on the cheek. 

"Thanks for coming, Li," he said, his bright eyes sparkling.

The weather was perfect, a warm summer night with a cool breeze, the stars bright even for the city, and Liam just saw a great movie with his best friend in the world. He was waiting outside for Harry to finish in the bathroom when a guy knocked past his shoulder. He turned around, his mouth open in an automatic apology, but he was taken aback by the nasty sneer on the guy's face.

"Where's your boyfriend, fairy?" The man spit out.

Liam was already turning away, he _was_ , the night was perfect and he wasn't going to let some jerk ruin it, but then the guy muttered, "You fags should stay home next time."

And, well. Liam's fist curled up and swung around to smash into the guy's jaw before he really made the decision himself.

It's just that Harry wasn't there to defend himself. It's just that Liam hates bullies. It's just that they're fifteen and they're best friends and they've kissed before, a couple times easy exploring with the help of the whiskey Harry's stepdad keeps in his lounge, a couple times nervously giggling without it. It's just that Liam never thought there was anything _wrong_ with that until he heard the venom in this guy's voice, until he saw the disgust.

But Harry loves the Wizard of Oz, and even though he's ending his night washing Liam's blood off his hands, he's still humming "Over the Rainbow" to himself with a brilliant smile on his face. And Liam won't ever be the one to make that smile disappear, so he bites his tongue when Harry asks what caused the fight. His wounds will heal up soon enough, anyway.

They don't kiss again, after that. He tells himself there's nothing wrong. They just grew out of it, like a worn piece of clothing that doesn't fit them anymore. It was comfortable, but not practical anymore. There's nothing wrong.

***

Liam's mom gets sick the next year. He's old enough now not to believe in fairy tales. The pneumonia has spread to too many organs and is cutting off oxygen to her brain. He knows she won't make it the day he goes to visit her at the hospital and she doesn't know who he is. It's always been the two of them, ever since his dad died. Liam and his mom were always there for each other, so for her to be staring at him with that blankness in her eyes is the worst kind of cruelty, and every time she has to ask him his name it's like having a dagger twisted into his heart.

But he still has Harry. He always has Harry. He's at the hospital just as often as Liam is. He's  at the funeral, standing tall and strong beside him, holding Liam up when he wants nothing more than to collapse. And he's there afterward, too, in Liam's darkest months. He shows up at least once a week with freshly baked goods steaming in the cool autumn air, and he stays over at Liam's parents' place most nights, too, until the rent gets too high and Liam moves into a cramped studio on the Lower East Side. And even then Harry is there, a constant presence in his life, warm and familiar, willing to sit in silence when he needs to be alone together, ready to distract him by teaching him how to twist flowers together into a crown or braid hair.

And Liam is there for Harry, too, of course. Harry's stepdad passes away not long after Liam's mom does. It's hard, and sometimes they wonder how they're going to keep going, but they do. They have to, because they need each other. Liam gets more bruises in that period than he knows what to do with, but at least it makes him feel a little more in control. At least he can protect Harry from _something_ , even if Harry doesn't realize it.

***

The war doesn't really surprise anyone. Liam and Harry both register, Liam because he wants to save people, Harry because conscription forces his hand.

"Anyway," Harry says as they stand in line to fill out the forms, "I can't let you go off to war without me. You'll end up picking a fight with Hitler the first night you get there, and even if I can't save you from that, I've gotta be there to see it."

It's a laugh. The war isn't real. They hear about it on the radio, sure, but it isn't _real._ Real is going down to Coney Island on a Saturday, letting Harry pick out the weirdest ice cream flavor he can find and Liam pretending to love it. Real is seeing an awful movie at the theater downtown on a Tuesday night because the tickets are cheaper. Real is getting pizza from the place down the street and taking it back to Harry's to eat, sitting cross-legged on the floor, Harry tucking his head over Liam's shoulder and reaching around to steal a piece of pepperoni off his slice.

So he isn't really sure how to react when Harry is drafted a few months later. He's been punched before, and it feels something like that, like having the wind knocked out of him, but no matter how much he takes a breath, he can't feel normal again.

Harry's holding the letter out in between them, pinching it gingerly between two fingers like it's something disgusting he found stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

"But you don't even like arguments," Liam says, staring at the paper. He knows he sounds petulant, and he's trying not to, but Harry never wanted to enlist and now he's the one going to war? He's the one leaving Liam behind? It's not _fair._

"I know," Harry says. He sounds dazed. They're sitting on the stoop that leads to Liam's apartment. The letter is all he can see, but Harry's staring down the street at a group of little girls jumping rope on the sidewalk.

"Tell them you're morally opposed, one of those-" Liam waves his hand through the air, looking for the words.

"Conscientious objectors," Harry supplies listlessly. One of the little girls stumbles over the jump rope and skins her knee, but she gets right up and starts jumping again, giggling wildly. He gives a grim little smile.

"I have to go," he says, quiet and brusque. "If it means keeping everyone safe..." He looks away from the kids, focuses back on Liam. "I have to do it."

Liam frowns at him, not understanding, because this is _Harry,_ who sings in the mornings and says _Why can't you just be nice_ _?_ to the guys Liam gets into fights with. How could Harry wear the uniform when he would never wear the cause? How could he sign up to fight?

How could he leave him?

Liam stands up and walks off the stoop, past Harry, past the little girls. He ignores Harry calling after him. He marches right up to the registration office and asks for a status update on his application.

The young woman at the window takes one look at him and frowns. "I don't think..."

"Check, please," Liam says. He doesn't care if he has to stand there all day. All night, even. "Payne, Liam."

She sighs and flips through a folder until she reaches his page. She only glances at it for a second before telling him he's still under consideration, but she doesn't close the file fast enough to stop Liam from seeing the stamp that reads "DENIED" in big red letters right over the list of all his physical ailments.

Okay, so maybe he's asthmatic and hard of hearing and iron deficient with early on-set arthritis and a malfunctioning kidney... but he's also determined. His parents raised him to keep fighting, to try just a little harder, so that's what he does. He re-registers, minus a few illnesses on the form. With a few more years tacked on his age. With a heavier weight, a taller height. And when those applications fall through, he tries a different route. He starts eating more, regulating his diet to pack on weight. He goes boxing every day. He hardly sees Harry anymore now that he's training so much, and he knows he should be taking advantage of the little time they have left together, but he can't help but feel that things will work out, somehow. After all they've been through together, things have to work out.

But then it's Harry's last night in New York. Liam wishes he could just stay holed up in his apartment and pretend Harry isn't going anywhere, pretend the war doesn't even exist, but of course as soon as he thinks that there's a knock on his door.

And there's Harry, already wearing his uniform, leaning up against the door frame with his dimpled smile.

"Hey, Li."

"Hey, H."

"What are we doing tonight?"

Liam shrugs. "I was thinking I'd stay in, actually. I don't feel well."

But Harry slings an arm around Liam's shoulder and pulls him in to ruffle his hair. "Come on, it's my last night! Come out with me?"

And maybe Liam wants to cry a little, but he can't mess up Harry's uniform, so he just squeezes his eyes shut against Harry's shoulder and nods.

There's a fair happening out on Coney Island. The music is loud, the lights blinding. Harry keeps his arms around Liam's shoulder as they walk, and he wonders if it's because he knows that Liam's barely holding together.

"So how does it feel?"

They're sitting on the docks, feet dangling over the water, sharing a cotton candy bigger than Harry's head.

Liam looks at him. "What?"

"You're about to be the last eligible man in the city." Harry grins at him. "There are three and a half million women here who are gonna be all over you."

Liam chooses not to acknowledge the way his stomach sinks at Harry's words. "One is good enough for me," he says tonelessly. He takes a bite of cotton candy but it doesn't taste like anything.

Harry sighs. "Liam..."

 _"What?_ " he snaps, even though he doesn't mean to.

"This is a _war._ This isn't some little kid game like we used to play. I don't want you to-" But he cuts himself off. Everything in him is waiting to hear how that sentence ends, but Harry just sighs again and rubs at his eyes. "I just don't understand why you're so obsessed with enlisting."

"My dad served. My mom was a nurse. They both risked their lives. I can't just let people go off to fight and sit here at home like a coward." It's a tired argument, one they've had before, and Liam knows his lines. Harry has always backed off when he brought up his parents. He knows Liam doesn't like to talk about them.

But this time he shakes his head. "No. No." He's staring hard at Liam, his eyes peering straight through to the heart of him. "It's something else."

And Liam can't-  _won't_ \- say that the thought of losing Harry destroys him, that he would rather die than be alone, and so even though this may be the last time he sees Harry for at least a year, the only way to get him to stop studying him like this is to pick a fight.

"This isn't about me. I don't deserve to be sitting at home while y-" _Damn it._ Why can't he do even this right? "While men lay down their lives."

It works. Harry shakes his head, looks away. "Right. 'Cause you've got nothing to prove." His voice is hard, and for a moment Liam thinks he's fucked everything up. He's never seen Harry look so upset.

But then he turns back to him, the corners of his lips twitching upward, and he says, "Don't do anything ridiculous until I get back."

Liam manages to smile back at him. "How can I? You're taking all the ridiculous with you."

Harry takes the cotton candy from his hand, places it gently on the ground, and tackles Liam.

"Ouch!" he yelps, a laugh startling out of him. They grapple with each other until Liam gives up, breathing hard, and Harry is sitting on top of him with a triumphant grin.

Too triumphant, if you ask Liam, so he reaches over, grabs the cotton candy, and shoves it in Harry's face, forcing him to roll off.

"You're a punk," he says once he's sat up again. He wipes a bit of cotton candy off his cheek.

"Jerk," Liam retorts instantly. And then, a lump in his throat: "Be careful."

Harry flashes a smile at him. "Careful's my middle name."

They stay there until the stars are gone and the sky is pink like the cotton candy stuck in Harry's hair. Liam would have stayed there for the rest of his life.

But the war doesn't wait for anyone, and Harry stands up eventually, holding out his hand to pull Liam up, too.

"So..." he says.

He doesn't look at Liam, like he's bashful, but Liam understands. What is there to say?

So he just grins. "Don't win the war until I get there!"

Harry smiles back and gives him a crooked salute, and Liam thinks he's never seen anyone so gentle in his life.

He doesn't pray much, hasn't ever since his parents died, but later that night, after Harry has left and he's alone in a too-small apartment, he privately asks God if he can look after his best friend.

Just in case.

***

The city doesn't seem to shine as bright without Harry there to enjoy it with. He gets a job in a factory, melding two pieces of metal together and then passing them on to the next guy in the line. He takes his lunch break alone, and then he goes home to an empty apartment that still holds Harry's memory in every corner. Every morning before work, he shows up at the registration office. The lady who works at the front desk- Jade- knows him by name, and she even smiles at him now, but the answer never changes.

A month after Harry's been shipped out, there's an old man in a white suit standing next to the desk when Liam walks in. He doesn't think much of it, just smiles at Jade and asks her how she's doing today. Instead of answering, she looks up at the man.

"Mr. Payne, I presume?"

Liam raises his eyebrows. "Yes?"

The man is strange, there's no doubt about that. He looks Liam up and down instead of answering, then turns on his heel and heads into a door beside the registration desk.

"Well? Are you coming or not?" he calls back with a funny accent.

Liam glances at Jade, who shrugs at him. He follows the man into the office.

"Who are you?" he asks. They're in a storage room, with boxes and boxes stacked on top of each other.

"Dr. Abraham Erskine," the old man says, and then, without even a second's pause, he asks, "So you want to kill Nazis?"

Liam blinks. He knows what he _should_ say. He's heard the new enlistees bragging before they've even seen a battle or a gun, but he has to tell the truth.

"I don't want to kill anyone." Erskine is still looking at him, almost encouragingly, like he wants Liam to keep talking, so he adds, "I just don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from." He presses his lips together.

Erskine nods, hands him a manila folder, and walks out of the room. Liam doesn't have to look at it to know it's his file, the same one Jade has been pretending to consult for weeks, but something pushes him to open it.

And there it is. A scrawny picture of him. His name, address, family status, physical description. But instead of the red "DENIED" stamp he's grown used to seeing, there's now a green stamp that says "APPROVED."

When he races out of the room to ask Erskine if it's real, he's nowhere to be seen.

***

Somehow, training isn't what Liam imagined. He thinks he's done the hard part- he's gotten in, he's been given a uniform, he's officially a soldier- and everything else will just work itself out. Because he worked _so hard_ to get here, and he wants this more than anyone, but his body won't cooperate. His lungs give out after he runs a few yards, and he can't lift nearly the amount of weight the other men can. He always imagined being a soldier meant having a new family, people he can depend on for anything. Instead, every other guy in his squad seems determined to get him kicked out. They don't communicate with him, they don't help him out. They seem to hate him and the way he slows them down, and he wants to shout, _I'm sorry! I'm trying!_ but they wouldn't listen, anyway. All he can do is push himself more and more until he collapses. The only thing that keeps him going is the thought that the sooner he's done with training, the sooner he can see Harry again.

He's glad to see Dr. Erskine the day he shows up with Agent Smith, even though the other men don't trust doctors and are terrified of the agent because she knocked a guy out cold after he made a crude comment to her during line-up. At least she and Erskine don't seem to hate Liam. Well, Erskine doesn't, at least. Agent Smith mostly just seems bemused by him, like he's some little kid who wandered into camp one day and everyone only let him stick around to see what he would do.

He forgets they're here after about an hour. They come every so often to observe training, so he and the other soldiers are used to it by now. Although he can't imagine _why_ they're here, since training isn't the most riveting thing to watch. All they do is stand around talking in low voices and taking notes.

Except today, when they're out doing push-ups, Agent Smith shouts "GRENADE!" and a small metal cylinder goes rolling into camp. The men all scatter, and Liam jumps on the grenade without even thinking about it. He squeezes his eyes tight and wraps his tiny frame around the grenade as best he can, until a minute passes and he realizes he's not being blown into a million pieces.

He opens his eyes and everyone is staring at him curled around a fake grenade, the Colonel like he's done something wrong, Agent Smith and Erskine like they're... proud of him?

"Is this a test?" He stands up and kicks the grenade back to Agent Smith. He doesn't want to look at anyone. He hates tests, he's never been good at them, and now everyone's staring at him like he's some kind of freak.

"Of a sort," Agent Smith answers, her voice surprisingly gentle.

He looks up at her. She has a kind face, he thinks, even if the fact that she's part of some top secret organization and also broke that soldier's nose without any hesitation terrifies him. He looks at Erskine, who's looking back at him like he's done something especially interesting. He looks at the other guys in his squad, glaring at him like he made them look bad, like he's cemented himself as the _me_ versus _them._ It occurs to Liam that his reason for being there is different from the others. As much as he wanted to be in this war, he knows he doesn't belong here. He was so happy to finally be let in that he didn't spare much of a thought for _why_ he's been let in.

He pulls Erskine aside from the others and lowers his voice so they won't hear him. "Can we talk? In private?"

Erskine gives him an appraising look. "I think that would be prudent, yes."

They go back to Erskine's temporary tent. It's well-lit, with towering piles of books teetering haphazardly wherever there's an open space. Erskine pulls out a bottle of whiskey and offers Liam a glass, but he shakes his head.

"Bad kidneys," he says by way of explanation.

"Right, right." There's a glint of _something_ in Erskine's eyes, and the not knowing is making Liam anxious.

He just has to come right out with it, then.

"Why am I here?"

Erskine nods, as if Liam has just told him something vital. "I was wondering when you would ask yourself that."

"I'm asking _you_."

Erskine gives a little smile and downs the rest of his drink.

And then he tells him what he calls the truth but what can only be some sort of story, because since when are superheroes and evil villains named _Schmidt_ real?

And why would they choose _Liam,_ of all people? Any of the guys in Liam's squad would be better. Harry would be better. The Colonel would be better. Agent Smith would definitely be better than any of them.

"You're good, Liam." When Erskine looks at him, he gets the distinct impression that he can see everything going on in Liam's head. "I made a mistake with Schmidt. He was a bad man who became worse. But you? You're a good man. I want to make you better."

He wants to run out of the room, to tell Erskine that he's making another mistake, that Liam isn't good _enough._ He's not hero material. He just wants to be a soldier and save people like every other guy here.

Erskine leans forward with his elbows on the table and looks at Liam imploringly. "If you do this, you can stop all this." He waves his hand around the tent, but Liam knows he means the fighting, the war, the parents losing their children. "This will all be over so much sooner. I promise you I have been searching for over a year. And we've been observing you. This is no hasty choice. We need _you,_ Liam."

Liam still doesn't quite believe him, but then he thinks about Harry, out fighting a war he doesn't even believe in, putting himself in danger because it's the right thing to do.

_If it means keeping everyone safe, I have to do it._

"What do I have to do?"

***

Agent Smith is in on it. She's the one who accompanies him to what Erskine calls "the operation room." Liam's not sure what exactly the procedure entails-- he was too nervous to ask Erskine-- but he's spent enough time in hospitals during his life to know it probably won't be fun.

They're being driven through the Lower East Side, past all the places he and Harry used to hang out. He wishes more than anything that Harry was here to crack some long, incomprehensible joke to make him feel better. Instead he has Agent Smith, sitting silent and stoic beside him.

"I used to live in this neighborhood," Liam says, just to talk, because he can't stand the thought of someone not liking him.

Agent Smith doesn't look at him, but she makes a vague hum of acknowledgment so at least he knows she heard him.

"I was beat up there," he says, pointing out an alley. "And there... and there... and there, too."

Aha! The ghost of a smile, there for the flicker of an instant before she wipes it away.

"You have something against running away?" she asks, glancing at him.

He smiles, because it's the same thing Harry had asked the first day they met. "You start running and they'll never let you stop. But if you stand up and push back... well, you can't keep losing forever, right?"

Agent Smith is fully looking at him now, like she's trying to understand him, and Liam feels his cheeks warming so he blurts out the first thing in his head.

"Why did you join the army, anyway? A beautiful girl- I mean, lady. Um, a woman." He coughs. "Not a girl. You are beautiful, but." His face is burning now. Opening his mouth was probably not a good idea, actually. Now _he'll_ be the next story recruits will tell each other about Agent Smith kicking someone's ass.

But she just laughs, a _real_ laugh, not like when that jerk made a rude comment and she punched him right in the face. "Sophia will do." She shakes her head and smiles right at him. "You don't have much experience with women, do you?"

He shrugs. "Talking to women always seemed so terrifying. And in the past few years, it just... didn't seem to matter that much." He's glad they arrive before she has a chance to ask him why it stopped mattering, because he's not sure he knows how to put it into words.

The building where the operation room is located is heavily guarded. He sees at least five standing outside, and he's sure there are snipers located on rooftops. They walk through what feels like hundreds of halls and then down several flights of stairs to the brightly lit operating room. There are more armed guards just outside its doors.

"Who are they trying to keep out?" Liam mutters, but Sophia doesn't answer. It occurs to him right after he asks that maybe it's more about keeping him in. In case he goes bad like Schmidt did. He can't help but give a little shudder.

When he walks into the room, everybody stops talking and stares. There are about ten people wearing lab coats, a few men in military gear, some suited businessmen, and a guy with a camera who snaps a photo right in Liam's face. The bright flash nearly blinds him.

"Liam!" Dr. Erskine comes strolling up to him and claps him on the back, grinning ear to ear. Liam doesn't think he's ever seen him look so excited before. "Are you ready?"

He's not, but he follows Erskine to the operating table anyway. It's less of a table and more of a machine, with straps and wires running from side to side. Liam lies down in it and lets them strap his arms in. The straps are awfully loose, and he can't help but think nobody told the guy who built it just how small he is.

"You are very brave to do this." Erskine peeks his head over the top of the machine like he's peering into a coffin.

"I don't scare easily," Liam says, and it's not an empty boast. It's just that he's never really understood the _point_  of fear. Things happen, and then he deals with them. Fear just gets in the way.

"Don't worry," Erskine tells him. "It will all be over soon."

"Aren't you supposed to say it won't hurt a bit?" he asks feebly, but then they shut the lid and he's left in darkness.

There's no count-down when they start. Just a hushed silence, a bright light that burns his eyes even from inside the machine, and then the most intense pain he's ever felt in his life, like being set on fire, electrocuted, and pulled apart at the same time. He spares one last thought for Harry before he blacks out.


	2. Chapter 2

_Repeat to yourself "I won't leave you, I won't leave you" until you fall asleep and dream of the place where nothing is red._

 

When he wakes up, everything is different.

It's not just the new body, although that's hard enough to get used to. HYDRA, the organization Schmidt is heading, got hold of the serum. They killed Erskine, right after Liam woke up, and even though he caught the shooter, he didn't get anything out of him. When he asks Agent Sophia or the Colonel for information, they suddenly become very busy with other important matters. Everything is top-secret, and if Liam thought being Captain America would make him privy to those secrets, well, he's wrong.

Captain America. That's what they're calling him. They fixed his kidneys, his lungs, his bad heart, his weak bones. They gave him muscles and strength and speed. Even his thoughts seem to come quicker, more clearly now. Then they give him a cheap metal shield and a fake gun and a scratchy uniform that wouldn't last two seconds out in the field. When he asks Sophia what's going on, she purses her lips and hands him a script.

"This is your job now," she says. "Worry about that."

They changed his body, made him taller and stronger, but they couldn't change who he is deep down. Just some little kid from Brooklyn, desperate to help people. Or maybe it isn't even that. Maybe he isn't that noble. Maybe all he wants is to prove himself, to prove he's just as capable as anyone else of surviving the war.

Either way, he doesn't get the chance. Now his life is touring around the country. Not like the guys from his squad, who have graduated training and are probably hunkering down in trenches somewhere in Germany now. Not like Harry, who is God knows where doing God knows what. No, he's touring with a company of bubbly girls in sparkly leotards, pulling off flashy numbers for unimpressed parents and the bright-eyed kids who dragged them there.

And he's _good_ at it. He puts on his cheap uniform and his best smile, he learns his lines and he works his ass off. He travels from state to state and shakes the hands of people whose family members are in the war, and he takes pictures with little kids and assures them they'll be good soldiers one day, because that's his _job._ The producers of the show give him the stats- bond sales take a 10% jump in every state he visits. And maybe it isn't what he expected he'd be doing when he signed up, maybe he's not saving lives, but he's making people happy, and that's important, too, right?

Anyway, how can he complain? He's been given a second chance, and he has to take advantage of that. Eventually, he learns to tell himself that the rate of enlistment increasing means more soldiers, which means the U.S. is getting more help, which means maybe the war _will_ be over sooner because of him. He is saving lives, in a way.

He almost starts to believe it, too. Almost. But then the tour goes abroad and he's in Italy, five miles from the front, staring out at a sea of gray, haggard faces who have seen too much and faced more than anyone should have to.

The whole company knows it's different this time. It's the first time they've been outside of the U.S., facing a crowd who knows that what they're spouting is a bunch of glossed up lies. They came to raise morale, but all it takes is one look out at that crowd to know they're not buying what he's selling. He delivers his lines, does his best to give them a winning, Captain America™ smile like he was taugh, but once the dancing girls have left the stage, it's just Liam, hiding behind a shield so cheap it may as well be made of plastic. He's not surprised when they boo him off stage and pelt him with hunks of stale bread, but he's never felt smaller in his life.

That is, until he sees Sophia backstage and she tells him that his audience contained what was left of the 107th regiment. His vision goes darker than the heavy clouds above them.

 _Harry,_ he thinks, and then: _Please, no._

The chemicals they pumped into him make him faster, but he feels like he's dragging his feet through a swamp as he runs to see the Colonel. He hears the sound of Sophia's feet pounding after him, but she's too far away. An afterthought.

Because all he can think is _Harry, please, no,_ the words running over and over again in his head until they're just a meaningless roar. The 107th was Harry's regiment, and he would have seen him in the crowd, Harry would have called out to him- unless he didn't recognize him? But no, Harry could never _not_ recognize him, no matter how different Liam looks. Every atom in their bodies would recognize each other even if somebody tore them to pieces and put them back together again in the wrong order. They're inseparable, and Liam knows that if Harry were dead he would _feel_ it somehow, like waking up with a bruise you can't remember getting.

So he doesn't feel anything when he's told Harry didn't come back-- not white-hot rage like when Erskine died, or guilt like when he first saw dead soldiers brought in from the field, or the sorrow that hung heavy in his gut when his mother died. There's nothing, really. Just determination. Because Harry can't be dead.

The Colonel says they can't spare the men for a rescue mission, and Liam knows better than to try to argue. So he pushes past Sophia and runs back to his tent to pack his things.

She follows him, of course.

"Don't bother trying to stop me," he says curtly. "I have to do this."

Sophia looks exasperated. Liam tries not to notice. The last thing he needs is someone trying to convince him that Harry is dead. Harry can't be dead, because Liam can't feel anything.

"How do you expect to find your friend without transportation? You're faster now, but it will take you days to reach him."

He pauses with his shield in his hand, then shrugs and places it near his bag. "I'll figure it out."

She snorts. "If we wait for you to do that, we'll be waiting a week. I'll call in a favor."

***

Sophia's "favor" turns out to be Howard Stark and a commandeered helicopter. Which, as far as Liam is concerned, is perfect. They drop him down right into enemy territory, a mile from where the rest of the 107th was reported to have been captured. Liam shoulders his shield and starts running toward the capture point, using the shade of trees to avoid the light of the moon bright above them. He feels like a fraud, with his cheap tin shield and the new body he doesn't completely know how to use. It still doesn't feel quite _his._

But there's no time to worry about that, because Harry is missing. Missing, not dead. And Liam is going to find him and bring him home.

He takes out the two guards watching the captives without any problem. They weren't alert at all; they probably didn't expect the U.S. to spare any resources to rescue such a small group of soldiers. From the looks on their faces, they also didn't expect to be facing a lone man in a leotard. He knocks them out with his shield in a manner of seconds, and then he takes the key to the captives cages and lets them out. A quick scan over their faces tells him Harry isn't there.

"Harry Styles?" he shouts over the commotion of the men celebrating their freedom.

One of them points toward a high outlook tower on the perimeter of the camp. "They took him over there, sir."

It's strange, hearing someone call him sir. Liam never even finished training, so this soldier technically outranks him. Still, now isn't the time to compare titles.

"Thanks." He looks around at the ragtag group of men. They look exhausted and malnourished, but there's a fierce look in their eyes. "What's your name?"

"Stan."

Liam nods. "Stan, d'you think you and the guys can hold the camp while I storm the tower?"

A ragged cheer goes up from the men surrounding him.

"It would be our pleasure," he says with relish, and he salutes him.

Liam salutes back, and then he's off again, pushing his legs faster and faster. He doesn't know why they took Harry, but it can't be for anything good.

The air lights up around him. He can hear gunfire coming from behind him. The men must have found weapons, then. And Nazis. He smells it-- the fire and blood and the quiet chaos of death. He should feel afraid, he knows. He's never been in danger before, he's never had to fight for his life. This is different than some spoiled bullies in Brooklyn. These are men like him, some of them scared, which makes them more dangerous. Liam told Erskine that he didn't scare easily because he didn't think fear was useful, but he was wrong. Fear would make him faster, stronger, more desperate. He thinks about everything that could go wrong as he runs to Harry-- he could be ambushed by more men than he can fight off, he could be killed, _Harry_ could be killed before Liam arrives-- but they're empty thoughts. There's no room in his head for anything but focus. He has to get to Harry.

He enters the outlook tower and is surprised to find three men pointing guns at him. There must be cameras within, they had to have seen him coming. Or maybe they just heard the fighting from outside. One of them shoots at him and Liam barely manages to throw himself out of the way. He slams his shield into one soldier's head and he goes down cold, his gun clattering to the floor. Liam lunges for it and swings it around, shooting instinctively. One soldier gets hit, a clean shot through the head by pure chance. The other is young, maybe a year or two older than Liam. He looks down at his fallen comrades, looks back up at Liam, then turns and runs.

Liam lets him go, because the man on the floor is dead and Liam is going to be sick.

He's seen people die before. Erskine had died in Liam's arms just a month before. But this is different. Liam caused this death. Liam _killed._ He knows that death is part of war, but nobody prepared him for this-- the shaking, the nausea, the _guilt._

"Why didn't you run?" he whispers. He doesn't want to look at the man, but he forces himself to kneel down next to him, to see the paleness of the skin surrounding the ugly leaking wound in his head. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." His eyes are wet.

He has to leave. He has to find Harry. He stands up, but not before taking the identification pack tucked into the man's uniform.  _I'll tell your family,_ he promises the man. _I'm sorry._

The rest of the tower is suspiciously empty, but Liam doesn't question it. He's not sure he can handle another fight right now-- his hands are still shaking from the last, even as he runs.

He finds Harry in a room tucked down a hallway at the very top of the tower. It's just as empty as every other room he's checked on the way up, and maybe he should be worried about that but all he can register is the overwhelming relief at seeing Harry again. He's strapped to a table in the center of the room, his eyes closed, but when he hears Liam's footsteps his eyes fly open.

"No more," he mutters, quietly but then louder. "Stop! I can't, please! No more!" His eyes are wild, his body thrashing under the straps.

Liam rushes over to the table and pulls out a knife to cut Harry loose, but he's moving too much and Liam's afraid he'll accidentally cut him. His hands are shaking, too, even more than before, and he can feel his heart pounding in his head. He thinks he's going to be sick, but he doesn't know why until he looks down at Harry's glazed eyes.

 _I'm afraid_ , he realizes. He's found Harry now, but Harry's looking right past him, like Liam isn't even there. Except it's worse than that-- Harry looks _afraid_ of Liam. Harry thinks Liam is the enemy.

"It's me, H, it's me," he tells him. "Harry, it's me!"

Harry's body stills. His gaze lands on Liam's. There's a moment where he still looks uncertain, but then his eyes focus and he smiles.

"L-Liam," he says, sounding weak but amazed, and so, so alive.

The breath whooshes out of Liam in a sigh of relief. He wants to hug Harry, but there's no time. He contents himself with pressing a hand to his cheek, feeling the warmth of his skin and the stubble underneath his palm.

"I thought you were dead," he says. Why is his heart beating so fast now that he knows Harry isn't? He cuts the straps away and helps Harry off the table. He has to lean on Liam just to stand.

Harry looks him up and down. "I thought you were smaller."

"I've been working out." He flashes a smile at Harry. "Come on, let's get you out of here." He pulls Harry's arm around his shoulder so he can help bear some of his weight. He's favoring his right leg, but the left looks sprained, not broken. They're a lot slower walking out than Liam was coming in, but thankfully the tower remains empty.

"What did they do to you?" Liam asks as they walk, eying the red marks on Harry's forearms where the straps dug in too tight.

Harry shakes his head. "I don't know. I don't remember anything after we were captured." His finger traces the muscle in Liam's upper arm, his eyes dancing with wonder. "What did they do to _you_?"

So as they walk, Liam explains everything he's been through since Harry left. Training, Dr. Erskine, the operation, HYDRA.

"Did it hurt?" Harry asks, and he looks so concerned, even though he's the one who's been a captive for days, that Liam can't stand to tell him the truth.

"Not really." He remembers the feeling, that searing heat and then an icy blade running straight through to the center of him. He remembers wishing at that moment that he was dead. He's glad he can pretend he's looking for the best way out so Harry can't see the lie in his eyes.

"Is it permanent?"

Liam pushes back the hurt that rises with Harry's question. He's stronger now, and faster, and _better_... and Harry's worried it's permanent?

"So far."

Harry opens his mouth but Liam doesn't get to hear his response because they enter a boiler room and come face to face with Schmidt, who's standing on the other side of a narrow bridge that separates the platform they're standing on from his.

"Captain America." Schmidt sneers at him, his lip curled up in distaste. "I was wondering when we would meet."

"I would say it's a pleasure, but under the circumstances..." Liam takes a surreptitious glance around the room. The bridge is the only way to get across, and there's nothing but a long drop down to the ground beneath them. If he were alone, he would rush Schmidt, but with Harry here...

"Oh, Mr. Payne..." Schmidt _tuts._  Liam feels Harry tense when he uses Liam's name. "I was hoping we could be friends. After all, we're not that different, you and I."

"Except for the part where you want to murder people," Harry says angrily.

Schmidt's eyes move to him for the first time, a slight smile on his face, and Liam is suddenly hyper aware of Harry's labored breathing, of the cut on his cheek and the limp in his step. Of how fragile he is. He steps in front of Harry, blocking him from Schmidt's view, but he can't stop him from hearing what Schmidt says next.

"You think you are so much nobler than me, but we are the same." His voice is quiet, but it carries even over the sound of gunfire and shouts from outside. "We have left humanity behind."

And with that, he peels off his face like a mask, revealing the raw, boiling red layer underneath. And then he speaks an order into a walkie talkie in his hand, too quiet for Liam to make it out, and with a giant _boom_ a bomb goes off underneath them.

Harry and Liam are sent reeling to the side of the platform. Liam grabs the door and barely manages to stop them from tumbling off into the fire below. When he looks up, Schmidt is gone, and so is the bridge leading to the exit.

Liam stares at the place where Schmidt-- where that _thing-_ - had stood. What _happened_ to him? How had he gotten that way? Harry had asked him if his new body was permanent. What was he thinking now, that Liam is going to turn into Schmidt? Or that Liam already is like that underneath and there's no going back to the way things were? Does Harry think he's a monster now?

Is he?

"Liam!" Harry shouts, and Liam pushes away his thoughts. The room is on fire. They have to go.

There's still one beam from the bridge remaining, a tenuous connection between their side of the room and the other. Liam watches Harry cross it, his heart in his throat. He's inches from the other side when the beam falls away with a _crack_ and he has to jump, barely landing with both feet on the platform.

The flames are crawling even higher now, and the heat is making him sweat. He can't get across, and the door they came through only leads up. He and Harry realize this at the same time.

Harry looks around the room wildly. "There's gotta be a rope, or--"

Liam shakes his head. "Just go!" he shouts. The building is shaking all around them. It's not going to last much longer. "I'll go back, I'll find another way!" 

"Not without you!" Harry shouts.

There's a fierce determination in his eyes that Liam recognizes, because it's the same thing he felt when the Colonel told him there would be no rescue mission for the 107th regiment. Liam feels the heat on his skin and knows that if he doesn't find a way to get to the other side, Harry will burn here with him.

So he backs up as far as he can, sprints to the edge of the platform, and jumps.

And then he is crashing into Harry's arms, and it feels like coming home.

***

Everyone comes running when the 107th regiment stumbles into camp, some wounded, but every one of them alive. Liam's not sure if the Colonel is going to kill him or commend him, but Sophia is hiding a little smile behind him. He hopes she didn't get in too much trouble for helping him.

Harry shouts, "Let's hear it for Captain America!" and the camp erupts into cheers, but when Liam turns around to share the moment with him, he's vanished, lost in the throng of battered soldiers who are surging forward to clap Liam on the back.

The Captain America Victory Tour ends after that, thankfully. The other soldiers have accepted him as one of their own, thanks to the praise of Harry's regiment (and equal thanks, Liam suspects, to their fists if anyone ever has a bad word to say about him).

His new job involves a lot of meetings with commanding officers and long hours poring over strategic maps. Harry isn't cleared to take part in these, so Liam finds himself spending more time with Sophia. It's a lot easier to talk to her now that he knows she's on his side, although he still puts his foot in his mouth sometimes. She's patient with him, though, and he was right to think she was kind when he first saw her. Some of the men with more authority still treat him like some little kid who only knows how to speak when he's fed lines, but Sophia's always ready with a biting quip to defend him. He tells her not to worry about him, but she seems to relish taking the older men down a peg.

He doesn't see Harry much in the weeks after the rescue mission. He spends a week in medical so they can make sure he hasn't suffered any long-lasting effects from the time he spent as a hostage. On the charts, he seems fine. The only problem is he can't remember anything that happened to him. The doctors think it will come back to him eventually, but as the war continues and Hitler's troops advance, problems like memory loss seem less and less important. Eventually, Harry's released with a prescription of two week's rest off-duty. Liam would be bouncing off the walls if he had to sit around in their tiny camp with nothing to do for that long, so he makes an effort to check in with Harry whenever he can, but there's something...off. He's less responsive now, and he doesn't smile as much. He's distracted and even sullen when Liam talks to him, and he spends more time staring off into the distance than actually looking at him when they speak. His usual ten-hour, wandering responses to simple questions have faded into monosyllabic answers. It's frustrating after being separated from him for so long not to be able to talk like they used to, but Liam tries to bite back any hurt. He's been through a lot, after all.

So he gives him space, which isn't hard to do with all the meetings he's involved in these days. They're forming a new team, a sort of highly specialized, highly secret precision squad for high-stakes missions, and Liam, apparently, is going to command it.

"Are you sure?" he asks when they tell him. He's pretty sure he's gaping. "I mean, I'm not exactly qualified for this?" He can't help that everything he's saying is rising up into a question.

"You're possibly the most qualified out of anyone here," Sophia says firmly. "The men respect you after what you did for the 107th."

The Colonel nods at him. "You know I'm not happy about you running off without permission," he says. He fixes Liam with a look so stern that he nearly takes a step back. But then the Colonel smiles. "Still, you infiltrated enemy territory without any backup and got our men back with zero casualties. I'd call that qualified."

"But I haven't been properly trained!" Liam protests. "I don't know how to give commands! I don't--"

"Liam," Sophia interrupts him loudly, "do you know anyone else as fast as you, as strong as you, or with a body that regenerates as quickly as yours? Because if you do, we'd quite like them on our side."

So that settles it. Liam is the captain of the Howling Commandos. There's just the small fact of putting together a team, which the Colonel tells Liam is up to him.

"It's time you start making the decisions," he says, and Liam could swear there's a hint of relief in his voice.

It's not hard to choose who he wants on his team. Nobody has been more enthusiastic about his presence at camp than the 107th, and he's not sure any other regiment feels they have as much to prove as the men who had been captured, either. Any group that can take over a German camp with no weapons is the type of group Liam wants fighting beside him. He runs the decision past Sophia and the Colonel and they remind him that the choice is his, but when the Colonel turns away, Sophia gives him a little nod of approval.

So Liam sends word to the men and asks them to meet him at a bar on their day off. Once they hear he's paying, it's not hard to get them to agree.

Harry is a little more difficult to convince. He's been more reclusive lately, even eating in his tent instead of with his squad at mealtimes.

"I think I'd rather stay in tonight," he says when Liam asks him.

He seems determined, too, until Liam gives him his most winning smile and says, "If you don't come out I'm going to end up picking a fight with someone bigger than me, and then who's going to save me?"

Harry mutters something that sounds like, "Is there anyone on Earth who's bigger than you?" but he agrees to come in the end.

When they get to the bar to meet the other guys, Harry slips off by himself. It's too crowded for Liam to go after him, since it's the only bar near camp and the entire world seems to go there when they have time off, so Liam lets him go for now.

Not surprisingly, all the men Liam saved agree to join his team, and he doesn't even have to get them drunk before he asks them.

"This'll be one for the history books, lads!" One of them, a man named Ed with a shock of red hair and the faint lilt of a British accent, raises his pint. "To the Howling Commandos!"

Liam leaves them to their drinks after a few minutes and goes looking for Harry. He finds him in an empty back room, sipping at a pint of beer.

"Since when do you drink beer?" Liam slides onto the stool next to him.

Harry shrugs. "It's been growing on me." He takes another sip and grimaces. "So why didn't you invite Sophia tonight?"

Liam was just about to give Harry the big news, but now his momentum is gone. Harry's got an odd look on his face, like he's tasted something unpleasant, and it's not just the beer.

"I did, actually. She had a meeting, but she said she might stop by later."

Harry snorts. "'Course she did."

Liam can almost feel it, the way the night is going sour and all his excitement is going with it. He frowns. Why is Harry being so  _sullen_? It's not like him.

"Are you... mad at me?" he asks carefully.

Harry frowns into his glass. "No."

"You are, though," he insists. "You're making your mad face, don't lie." He pokes Harry in the side, usually a sure-fire way to make him squirm away laughing, but Harry doesn't budge. "Come on, H," he needles. "Why are you mad?"

Harry doesn't answer, just takes another maddeningly slow sip of his beer.

Liam's never been good at figuring out riddles, but then, Harry's never _been_ a riddle to him. What could he be mad about? They've barely even spoken since Liam rescued him, but that's mostly because Liam's been going to all those meetings with--

Sophia. _Oh._

"Do you have a--" Liam wiggles his fingers in the air as he tries to think of the proper word, "--well, a _thing_ for Sophia?"

Harry's head shoots up to stare at him. "What?"

"Because we're not-- we haven't, I mean-- it's just professional with us. I mean, she's beautiful, but to be honest, she's not..." Liam trails off weakly.

"Not what?" Harry presses.

Liam shrugs, and why, _why_ are his cheeks getting so warm? "Just, you know." He shrugs again. "You know. Just. We're not."

Harry's expression is entirely incredulous now.

"I just wanted to make sure you're not mad." Liam smiles hopefully at Harry, and to his relief, Harry relents and smiles back.

"I could never be mad at you. I've just been feeling kind of weird, I guess, since they took me. I guess it's just, like, _strange_ you know? That I can't remember anything. So that's been bothering me. And then I guess I've been thinking about the war, and whether it's even, like, _right._ It felt right, when I came here. I wanted to save people like those little girls, do you remember? The ones we saw jumping rope outside your place the day I got my draft letter? But now that I'm sitting around here on bed rest, I guess I've been feeling sort of useless."

Liam's smile grows even wider. If Harry's back to speaking like he's narrating a lengthy nature documentary, he really can't be mad.

"I've got good news for you, then. If my calculations are correct, you're off bed rest as of tomorrow. And, coincidentally, a new squad is also forming tomorrow."

"All right..."

"As the leader of the Howling Commandos, I'd like to formally invite you to join the team. The other guys from the 107th already said yes, so... I guess if you say no, you're not really going to have a squad anymore." 

Harry shakes his head and laughs. "Did you steal my squad?"

He tries his best to look contrite, but he's smiling so much his cheeks are hurting. God, he's _missed_ this, just sitting with Harry and having a drink and laughing like it's old times. He never wants this to end.

"So, how about it?" He puts on his tour voice, the booming one that used to impress all the little kids in the audience. "Are you ready to follow _Captain America_ into the jaws of death?"

"Hell no!" Harry laughs through the words, nearly spilling his beer, but then his face sobers. "That little guy from Brooklyn who was too proud to run away from a fight, though? I'll follow him."

Harry doesn't know-- he can't know, because Liam hasn't said anything to anyone about how Schmidt's words have been plaguing his dreams at night. _We have left humanity behind._ And Harry can't know how much his words have warmed Liam, right down to his core. Liam doesn't even know how to properly thank him, so he just pulls him into a hug, and maybe he's taller and bigger now, maybe Liam's head is tucking into Harry's neck now instead of his chest, but hugging Harry will always be this: warm, safe, home.

"You're keeping the outfit, though, right?" Harry pulls back and smirks at him. Liam feels his cheeks heating up again under that gaze. "It's growing on me."

"Shut up," he mutters.

Harry laughs. "I mean it! It's nice. Very form-fitting. Eye-catching. Aero-dynamic, I'm sure," he muses. "Honestly, I don't think I can follow you into battle if you're _not_ wearing it. Wouldn't inspire the same kind of fervor."

"You're the worst," Liam tells him, very seriously.

Harry nods back, just as serious. "I know."

And Liam rolls his eyes, but he thinks Harry knows what he means.

_Thank you._


	3. Chapter 3

_He will lose so much, and you will watch it all happen._

 

The Howling Commandos seem to be exactly what Harry needed to feel like himself again. Maybe it's exactly what Liam needed, too.  _This_ is what he imagined war would be like-- not the blood, disillusion, and doubt, but the camaraderie. The _trust_. Liam's had Harry nearly his whole life, but now he has a squad of men who not only respect him, but genuinely seem to likehim. The trust they put in him is maybe a little overwhelming, but whenever he starts to feel out of his depth, he turns around and there's Harry right behind him, always ready to anchor him with a light touch or a smile. He never has to worry about anything with Harry there watching his back.

The other men joke about how in-tune they are.

"It's like there's two Caps, innit?" Ed remarks after Harry smashes the shield into an attacking soldier's head and throws it back to Liam just in time for him to deflect a bullet with it. "Captain America and his second half over there."

"That's  _Mrs._ Captain America to you," Stan says.

"Damn straight!" Harry shouts before carefully picking out a sharpshooter Liam hadn't noticed. "Now if you don't mind, gentlemen, we're trying to win a war here."

Harry grins at Liam, and Liam knows they're in the middle of a battle but his face breaks into a smile, too, and he couldn't stop it even if he wanted to.

Out in the field, things almost feel normal again, like they aren't Captain Harry Styles and Captain America, like they're just Harry and Liam, two kids from Brooklyn playing soldier with broomsticks in the streets. He says as much to Harry, and he snorts.

"Only the broomsticks sting a hell of a lot more these days."

Liam can't say that this life is easy, because it's not. He's responsible for all these lives-- the ones belonging to the men in his squad that he has to protect, and the ones belonging to the soldiers he has to kill. And he knows it's them or him, he knows that, but it doesn't really make it any easier. Still, he has Harry. He always has Harry. They have separate tents but most nights he ends up crawling into Harry's after another nightmare full of clammy skin and dead soldiers and men who rip their skin off to reveal demons underneath. If the other men think it's strange how often he comes out of Harry's tent in the mornings, they don't say a word. Even if they did, it wouldn't matter. Harry always has his back, and he's always there.

But then what should have been a routine mission turns into an ambush. It's a raiding operation, much like most of the Howling Commandos' mandates. Harry and Liam are supposed to parachute in, landing rough on top of a moving train full of German supplies that can't reach their destination, slip inside the conductor's box, incapacitate him, stop the train, and then the other guys drop in as backup to handle any guards around.

But when Harry and Louis climb down into the train, they're not facing the normal low-ranking guard they expected, but a fully outfitted soldier with a wicked looking gun. Liam has about a second to get over his surprise before he dives at Harry and knocks him to the side. He feels a gust of warm air rushing past his cheek and hears a huge  _crack,_ and when he twists his head to look behind him he sees that the blast has knocked out the back wall of their boxcar, letting in a rush of frigid air.

He turns his head back just in time to see the soldier taking aim at them again, and he quickly raises his shield to cover their bodies. It absorbs the blast, but just barely-- it goes spinning out of Liam's hands as he's flung back. He slams into a wall and crashes onto the ground. His ears are ringing, his vision blurred, but he blinks furiously to clear his sight. He tries to stand up and immediately falls back down to his knees. Harry somehow managed to grab the shield and he ducks behind it now, advancing toward the soldier with his gun out, shooting a steady stream of bullets that don't seem to do much against heavy armor. He looks so small in comparison, nothing but a shield standing between him and a weapon that has to be the peak of German ballistics. But what else has he got? Liam's body won't cooperate no matter how hard he tries to force himself to his feet.

So all he can do is kneel there, watching desperately as Harry is shot at. The shield takes the shot, but the impact knocks him back where the wall of the car has been blown out. For a second it looks like he'll regain his balance, but then he slips and the German winter swallows him up and out of sight.

"No!" Liam chokes out. The shock of Harry disappearing right in front of him must jolt something in his body because suddenly he can move again. The shield landed near him, so he grabs it and throws it at the soldier with a power he didn't know he had in him. The soldier tries to catch it but he's caught by surprise and the shield slams into him, knocking him out.

Liam rushes to the edge of the train, and he's shaking when he looks outside but it's not because of how fast they're going. Harry's still there, though. His nose is bleeding and he's clinging to the side of a train going 80 miles per hour, but he's  _alive_.

Liam climbs out, one hand on the side of the wall and one extended out as far as he can reach.

"Grab my hand!" he shouts, and Harry reaches for it, straining, but he's grasping at thin air. It's like Liam is watching this happen in slow motion. Harry's hand reaching out. His fingers brushing Liam's. His other hand slipping off the wall of the train. Harry falling hundreds of feet down the mountain, and Liam helplessly watching it happen, an aching roar in his ears and frozen tears on his lashes.

This isn't like last time. He can't hold any hope in him that Harry survived. There's no fierce focus on saving him. There's just this pain, deep inside him, tugging him down. It would be so easy to let go, to fall down, down, down into the frozen landscape, to stay with Harry until the end. Would this body die on impact, or would he be left there, shattered but still alive, slowly freezing to death? Even that might be better than what he's feeling now. At least that end wouldn't give him the guilt of surviving. At least he would know that he tried.

 _We leave humanity behind._ Harry was humanity. Warm, funny, bright, teasing, protective. And weak, too. Soft. Breakable.  _Gone._

The train speeds away, and try as he might, when he leads the squad back to collect Harry's body, he can't remember where he fell.


	4. Chapter 4

_He was supposed to be an angel._

 

Liam never imagined he would have to live in a world without Harry. There are no words to describe what it's like to know that he's not coming back. Maybe metaphors were invented to help people cope with grief, to put into words the crushing anchor in his chest and the pit of despair. He doesn't know what's worse: the moments he turns to catch Harry's eye or ask him a question and realizes he's not there any more, or when night falls and he can't fight off the nightmares that embrace him, making him relive every second of that last moment in agonizing detail.

He can't get drunk, apparently. The serum improved his cells, gave them some sort of hyper regenerative property. So as much as he tries, he can't forget even for one moment the look on Harry's face right before he fell. He was reaching out for him, and there was fear in his eyes, but underneath that was trust. He thought Liam could save him, right up until the end.

And Liam had failed him.

He stares down into a deep pint of amber whiskey at the same bar where he asked Harry to join his squad, and he wonders what, exactly, is the point of him.

"It isn't your fault, you know."

He doesn't have to look up to know who it is. Sophia's been chasing him down for a week, even though he's flat-out told her he didn't want to talk.

"You read the report." He takes another sip of the drink and grimaces at the taste. He doesn't think it'll ever grow on him.

"Of course."

"Then you know that isn't true."

People have been trying to convince him of his innocence in what happened ever since he got back. He wants to scream at them, to shake them until they understand that the Captain America they loved so much is more of a monster than anyone they're fighting. He doesn't, of course. He knows how important it is for people to have something to believe in. They just don't understand how dangerous it is to put that belief in a person.

It's like Sophia is reading his mind, because she asks, "Did you believe in your friend?"

He doesn't even have to think about it. "I do." But then he remembers, and he clears his throat and corrects himself. "I did."

"Then you shouldn't blame yourself. If he trusted you, then you should respect his choice. He damn well must have thought you deserved it."

And Harry _had_ trusted him, had believed in him, had followed him into battle, and not out of some misguided dream of being a hero. He had done it for Liam. To protect him, like he'd been doing since they were kids. Back when Liam asked him to join the Howling Commandos, Harry had said that he was following the little guy from Brooklyn, not Captain America. And that's where Liam had messed up-- Harry put his faith in Liam, but Liam put his faith in Captain America. And now Harry is gone.

He knows Sophia is waiting for him to answer her, but he can't handle her sympathetic eyes looking at him any longer, so he downs the rest of his whiskey and leaves her behind.

He's good at that, now.

He avoids her the best way he knows how-- throwing himself into the war. It's the only time he really feels alive. At least when he's fighting for his life, he can feel the adrenaline pulsing through his veins instead of the constant, smothering heaviness of grief and guilt.

The Howling Commandos stay together. He gathers the men together the day after the train mission, and he tells them that he's planning to volunteer for any front-line missions.

"So I understand if you want to be reassigned," he says, and he's hardly even finished the sentence before the men all start talking over each other.

"Don't be ridiculous!" Nick's voice rises above the others, loud and indignant. "Harry was our friend, too."

"Let's make those bastards pay," Ed chimes in, and the rest of the men shout their agreement.

He forgets, sometimes, that he isn't the only one who loved Harry, that anyone who met him couldn't help but love him.

So the Howling Commandos, down one member, remain in action, and true to his word, they volunteer for the most dangerous missions. There's no more fear in him anymore. He shuts off his empathy and becomes absolutely ruthless when it comes to fighting the enemy. If he hadn't hesitated back on the train, if he had entered expecting to see someone he would have to kill...

Well. He can't change the past, but he can make himself better now. He can make sure he doesn't lose anyone else. He tells himself he's doing it for the rest of his team, but he knows he's being selfish, trying to redeem himself somehow. Trying to live with himself.

Of course, it doesn't help. He still has nightmares, still wakes up shouting Harry's name in the middle of the night, his sheet tangled around his limbs. That hasn't changed. The only difference is that now he doesn't have Harry there to shield him from the worst of it with a soothing voice and his warm arms wrapping around him. He just has to ride it out, muffle his shouts in his sleeping bag and hope he can get at least an hour or two of rest before they have to set out again. If the guys hear him night after night, they're kind enough not to say anything. Or too nervous, maybe. He can't tell the difference anymore. The silence he's cultivated is suffocating either way, and he wears it like a shield.

He sees the way Sophia looks at him when they're both on base and he can't turn away fast enough to escape her gaze. It's pity, sadness, worry. It doesn't help him, just makes him feel even more guilty for hurting someone else. He hasn't spoken to her since she approached him at the bar, and eventually he's going on missions every day, only spending a few hours at most on-base before the Commandos head out again. He overhears her once, begging the Colonel to stop giving him assignments-- or to give him safer ones at least. The Colonel dismisses her.

 _At least he has his priorities straight_ , Liam thinks. This is about more than him. He has to kill Schmidt before the Nazis figure out Erskine's formula, or the war will be lost. The closer he gets to the front, the closer he gets to Schmidt. And if he dies before he gets there... well, better men than him have died fighting. The least he can do is clear the path a bit for the next soldier to come after him. 

But he doesn't die before he gets there. He beats Schmidt thousands of feet in the air on a German carrier nine months after Harry died. He wants to feel some sort of satisfaction, but there's just resignation. Sophia and the Colonel and the other guys are on the coms laughing and cheering, but Liam is on a plane miles away. A plane that is still set on its trajectory toward New York City, the place that was his home once, back when he still had one. There's no way to stop the missiles remotely.

He knows what he has to do, even if the others haven't realized it yet.

"Captain?" It's Sophia, a smile in her voice. "You did it!" She laughs now, like she's just realizing the sheer impossibility of this moment they've been fighting for throughout the entire war. "You did it, Liam!"

And he smiles, too, but she'll never see it. He turns off the coms. He's never liked goodbyes.

Outside the window, the sky and the ocean are blue, blue, blue. The sun is setting, drizzling soft pinks and oranges over the clouds. It's not a bad way to die, really. The sky all lit up before him like the 4th of July. He and Harry used to buy cheap fireworks and set them off in the alleys at night. He always insisted on lighting them, so Liam would stand back and wait for the flame to catch, and he would watch Harry running away toward him, cackling louder and warmer and brighter than the explosion behind him.

Liam angles the plane toward the water.

He takes a breath.

He doesn't know if it's his heart beating so fast or the plane making it rattle around in his chest as it jolts and jerks toward the sea. He keeps his eyes on the sky until the nose of the plane crashes into the water, and then he closes them.

He smiles.


	5. Chapter 5

_They took him from that light and turned him into something hungry, something that forgets what his hands are for when they aren't shaking._

_There is so much to forgive, but you do not know how to forget._

 

It can't be heaven, because Harry isn't there.

But it isn't hell, either. Liam has been to church enough as a kid and heard enough priests to know that a pristine white room isn't hell.

Or maybe it is, because Liam was fully prepared to die and S.H.I.E.L.D brought him back and dropped him into a New York City he can barely recognize, a New York that is too loud and too bright and too void of familiar faces. All while smiling at him like he should say thank you.

He knows he's probably being secretly monitored, and twice a month he goes in for a physical check-up, but other than that, he's on his own. They set him up with an apartment, some money, and radio silence. He's not sure what to do with himself. He goes out occasionally, but spending too much time in this world is overwhelming and usually just leaves him wanting to sleep for days.

He takes up boxing again. When he first started, back when he was a kid, it was thanks to Harry. He had wanted to learn to protect himself from bullies. Now he's boxing because of Harry again, but every swing is a memory he's trying to fight off. He can never win this battle, though. He can never forget, because this body was built for war, and since there's no war to fight anymore, his mind creates one. The memories are worse now. You would think being asleep for 70 years would make it easier to forget, but these memories are raw and bloody and vengeful. And he deserves every last one of them.

They give him his medals, the ones he was awarded posthumously for his efforts during the war, but if this is what winning feels like, Liam doesn't want it.

He's almost grateful when S.H.I.E.L.D's Director Cowell approaches him to join their team. It feels like he has a purpose again. Maybe that was their plan all along, but he can't bring himself to care. And maybe if he's out there fighting another war, the one in his head will quiet down some.

They give him a suit and a shield, identical to the ones he used 70 years ago but with today's technical improvements, brand new and shiny. It's a shame they can't wash the blood off his hands, too.

Before his first mission, something to do with some technology called the Tesseract, Cowell calls Louis into his office for a debriefing. But when he gets there, the office is empty save for a slim man dressed entirely in black standing near a window that overlooks the city. He's young, with tousled hair that looks like he cut it with the knife in his hands and eyes that are sharper than the blade.

He looks up when Liam enters the room, a glint in his eyes. "If it isn't Captain America!" he announces, much louder than necessary considering they're the only two people in the room. "Welcome to the team." He has a slight accent, but Liam can't quite place where it's from. He's more focused on deciding whether this guy is being sardonic or sincere.

"Liam Payne," he corrects him, holding out his hand. The man just arches an eyebrow, so Liam retracts his hand, his cheeks warm. "Sorry, I didn't catch your name?"

"Well, yeah." He plops down onto a couch and props his legs on the table in front of it. "That's 'cause I didn't give it to you. Not too quick on the uptake, are you, Captain?" He bares his teeth in a wolfish grin.

"So what should I call you?" Liam asks warily. He's found that life goes a lot easier when he can figure out whether people are friends or bullies, but this guy seems determined to make it hard for him.

"His name is Louis." Cowell strides in to the room, shutting the door behind him. "And he's not always this much of a dick."

"Such a warm introduction, thank you, Simon!" Louis stands up and sheathes his knife in one fluid motion, then marches over to Liam and sticks out his hand. "I also go by the Black Widow, if you like. We love our code names here at S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Louis is fine," Liam says. He hesitates before shaking Louis' hand. He's difficult to read, and something in his eyes tells Liam that he likes it that way, but it just throws Liam off-balance. "So you're on the team, too? I didn't see anything about you in the files."

"You actually read the files?" Louis places his hand on his chest. "That warms my heart, it really does. You must have been top of your class in school."

Behind Louis, Cowell rolls his eyes.

"But no, you wouldn't have read about me," he continues. "What good is a spy if everyone knows about him?"

Liam presses his lips together. He knows there was a file on _him_ , even though Cowell didn't share it. It doesn't seem right that Louis doesn't have to play by the same rules. "That's not a New York accent," he says, keeping his voice casual. "Where are you from?"

And then it's like a light switches off behind Louis' eyes, and any teasing brightness there goes cold and hard. "'m afraid that's classified, Captain. Save the interrogation for the enemy."

He spins on his heel and drops back down onto the couch, picking at his nails with his knife in a move that would almost look relaxed if Liam couldn't see how tightly coiled he is. No more questions, then.

***

It's odd, being on a team again. It's not exactly the same as it was in the war-- his teammates shift with each mission, so the camaraderie and the unwavering trust Liam had with the Howling Commandos is gone. Louis is the only S.H.I.E.L.D agent who's assigned to every mission Liam is. He suspects that Louis is reporting back to Cowell-- he asks Liam too many questions about what he gets up to on the weekend and whether he's seeing anyone not to be-- but he's a familiar face, at least. Their first few missions together are... strained, to say the least. Liam's main objective is to get everyone home safely, and going by the book is the best way to do that. Louis, on the other hand, seems determined to have a good time. He's always the first one to rush into a fight, even before Liam has given the command, his mouth open in a terrifyingly gleeful grin. He blatantly disregards Cowell's orders nine times out of ten, and for a spy, he seems entirely unacquainted with the concept of stealth.

They're slipping onto a French ship loaded with S.H.I.E.L.D hostages one night, and behind him Louis is wondering out loud what he should call Liam.

"'Captain America' is just so _boring_ , isn't it?" he muses loudly as Liam peers around a corner at the three armed guards patrolling the decks. "What about Lima? Leemo?"

 _I cannot punch my fellow agent,_ Liam thinks, gritting his teeth. _I cannot punch my fellow agent._

Louis snaps his fingers, and the guards stop their pacing and turn in unison to the exact spot they're hiding. "I've got it!" he crows. "The Payne Train! Because you're built like a fucking train and you also bring the p--"

Liam whirls around and claps his hand across Louis' mouth. "Can you be quiet for _five seconds_?" he whispers fiercely. "What kind of spy are you?"

Louis pulls Liam's hand off his mouth, and the smile that was underneath turns deadly. "The kind who doesn't care if you know he's coming." And then he steps around Liam and goes sauntering out into the open before anyone can stop him.

"Hello, sailors," he says, his voice a purr. Liam can't see anything from where he's standing, but he's never heard grown men scream like that.

Louis reappears around the corner ten seconds later. He wipes his bloody hands on Liam's uniform and winks at him.

"Come on, then. You were the one crying about us missing extraction. Let's get a move on, Payno."

Liam doesn't question Louis after that. They become a pretty good team, actually. Louis can be alienating at times, so he lets Liam handle the rest of the team and any civilians. And when it comes to fighting, despite his unorthodox methods, there's nobody Liam would rather have by his side. The more they go out on missions, the more Liam comes to understand Louis. He's brash and sarcastic and loves trying to rile people up, but Liam's seen the look he wears when he thinks nobody's watching. Liam gets the sense he's not the only one battling memories. They have the same rule, then-- no personal questions.

Liam tries not to think about how much the tension that has been coiled up inside him since he was woken from the ice unravels now that he's wearing the suit again, like his body was just waiting to be sent out to kill. It's the first time in months that life has seemed manageable.

Or, well, mostly. He sees Harry everywhere-- not just in his nightmares, but when he's in the city or out on a mission, too. He haunts Liam, showing up where he least expects him to, but then he'll notice something slightly off, the hair a shade too light, too long or not quite curly enough, and then it's just Liam, frozen except for his hands shaking like he's seen a ghost.

After he manages to accidentally destroy every punching bag in the tri-state area, Liam decides to take up running. He's surprisingly good at it now that his lungs work properly. He goes in the morning, when he's tired of pretending to sleep. He likes the way the sun peeks around the Lincoln Memorial and dances on the lake, like fireworks just before they fizzle out.

He'd be lying if he said he didn't also like how easy it is to mess with the only other guy who's just as dedicated (or lonely) enough to get up before the sun to jog. It's just too easy to run circles around him, and his aggravated groans every time Liam slips past him always make him crack a smile. It's been awhile since he's smiled this genuinely, and he's pleasantly surprised to realize he still knows how to.

He stops by to talk to the guy after they've both finished running one day. He's sprawled out on the grass, his sweater soaked in sweat and a pained expression on his face.

"Need a medic?" Liam asks, and the guy laughs.

"Yeah, or a new set of lungs, at least." He pushes his blond hair off his forehead. "I think it's time for me to take up a new hobby. Golf, maybe. A lot less running in golf." He uncrosses his arms and Liam spots the insignia stitched onto his sweater.

"What unit were you in?"

"58th Pararescue," he says promptly, like he was expecting Liam to ask. "I work at the V.A. now." He gestures for Liam to give him a hand up, so Liam pulls him to his feet. "Name's Niall Horan."

Liam shakes his hand. "Liam Payne," he says, and Niall lets out a bark of laughter.

"Yeah, I kind of figured that out. What with the superhuman speed and all." He pauses. "And, you know, your face all over the news."

Liam isn't surprised that Niall recognized him. He's more surprised he didn't say anything about it before.

"Must have been, like, a proper shock to come back to a new New York after the defrosting thing," Niall says.

Liam waits to feel that telltale stiffness in his chest, the one he gets any time he gets dangerously close to talking about Before. But there's something about Niall's bright eyes and easy smile that make Liam want to trust him. Or _need_ to trust him, maybe.

So he nods. "Took some getting used to, yeah." Niall's looking at him like he wants him to say something else, but everything else is a bit too much, so he just nods again, a goodbye this time. "See you around, Niall."

He's already walking away when Niall says, "It's your bed, isn't it."

It's not a question, but Liam answers it with one.

"What?" He turns back to face Niall, who's giving him a knowing look.

"Your bed. It's too soft. You go out there, sleep on the ground, use rocks for pillows if you have to. And then you come home, lie in your bed, and it's like..." He trails off, and he's focusing somewhere hundreds of miles from New York.

"Lying on a marshmallow," Liam says. "I feel like I'm gonna sink right to the floor."

Niall's gaze comes back to Liam and he looks surprised for a second, like he'd forgotten what they were talking about. But then he laughs and it's so bubbly that Liam finds himself laughing, too. "Exactly."

"How long did you serve?"

"Two tours." Niall considers him. "You must miss the good old days, huh?"

And there it is, that tightness is back, and it's not Niall's fault that Liam can't talk about what he's missing. He forces a smile. "Well, it's not all bad. Food's a lot better. No polio, that's always good. The internet's pretty helpful. Been reading that a lot when I have trouble sleeping."

Niall's giving him that look again, the one that says he can see right through Liam's act, but just then he gets a text from Louis, telling him they've got another mission. _Good timing._ He shoots off a message letting him know where he is, then looks back up at Niall.

"Well, it was nice running with you. If you can call that running."

"Fuck off," Niall says, but he's grinning.

"I'll see you around, yeah?" Liam knows he probably sounds desperately hopeful, but Niall lights up like Liam's given him a gift.

"Yeah, 'course! And if you ever want to come 'round the VA office, make me look good in front of the girl who works the front desk..." He waggles his eyebrows, and Liam's smile deepens.

It really isn't all that bad, the world today.

When Louis arrives to pick him up, he eyes Niall's retreating form with interest. He doesn't say anything about it until they're undoing their straps on a copter, prepping for a free fall.

"Do anything fun this weekend?" he asks, unconvincingly casual.

"Well, all the members of my boy band are dead, so no."

Louis rolls his eyes. "If you asked Danielle from Statistics out she'd say yes."

"That's why I don't ask."

"Is the Payne Train too shy or too scared?"

Liam doesn't feel like answering, so he steps off the plane and into the biting cold night sky.

Louis seems to think that Liam just sits around in his apartment all weekend, and sure, maybe he does do a lot of that. But he goes to the Smithsonian sometimes, too. Alone, though. Always alone. That's what he doesn't tell Louis. There's an exhibit there on him. Louis would probably start telling everyone that Liam's a narcissist, and then he would have to explain why he really goes.

They call Harry his "best friend since childhood," like they can sum it up so easily, like Harry wasn't the best thing about Liam, like he hadn't loved Harry before he even knew what love was. The disembodied tour voice says, "Styles was the only Howling Commando to give his life in service." Liam clenches his fist inside his jacket when he hears that. Harry had been following him. Harry had given his life for _him._ His heart starts acting up, gearing him up to fight even though there's no physical enemy he can see.

These visits always end like this-- with Liam struggling to catch his breath, his head bowed as he makes a fast retreat, the words _It's my fault, it's my fault_ smearing themselves on the walls of his brain.

He goes to see Sophia in the hospital sometimes, too. On good days, they talk about old times, about S.H.I.E.L.D, about the war. About anything but the thing Liam can't talk about. He visits every Sunday, and sometimes more often than that, until the bad days come more and more often and then there are no more days, no more visits.

After a stream of nightmares wakes him up every day for two weeks, he decides to go see Niall at the V.A. building. He can't shake the feeling that something awful is on the brink of happening, and so his brain replays the most awful thing that's ever happened, over and over, and each time he feels Harry's fingers grasping for his hand, sliding away from him, falling endlessly. And so he goes to see Niall, because he doesn't know what else to do.

Niall hadn't been completely honest with him before. He doesn't just volunteer-- he leads a therapy circle. Of course he does. And of course he says exactly what Liam needs to hear, about facing your past and forgiving yourself, and of course Liam has to step out of the room and take shallow breaths in the hallway and clench his fists against his sides to keep them from shaking.

If Niall saw him duck out early, he doesn't mention it, just claps him on the back and says, "Look who it is! Payno!" like they've known each other for years. Liam has to smile at how much Niall sounds like Louis despite how different they are. He thinks they would get along, somehow, although he can't imagine their worlds ever colliding.

"That was intense," Liam says. He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his sweater because he can't quite get them under control.

Niall nods, and for once, there's not even a hint of a smile on his face. "We're all here because we're dealing with the same stuff. Guilt. Regret." He looks at Liam thoughtfully, then turns away to grab his jacket.

"Did you lose someone?" He doesn't know why he's asking, because the last thing he wants to talk about is Harry and that's the only place this can lead, except... Except. He needs to know who Niall is, what he's been through. He needs someone, as much as he doesn't like to admit it to himself.

Niall pauses a moment and Liam thinks he might not answer, but then he nods. "My wingman. His name is-- his name was Eoghan." He looks down at the floor as he speaks. "It was a standard rescue op, but then... it went wrong." He shakes his head a bit, like he's shaking off the memory, and then he meets Liam's eyes. "There was nothing I could do. It's like I was just there to watch, you know?"

He does know. He wonders suddenly how much of his story Niall is already familiar with.

"I'm sorry," he says, because that's what you're supposed to say, even when it can't change a thing.

"Yeah, well..." Niall sighs. "That's war."

"But you're... you're happy now?" He can't help if his voice is a little bit rough, a little bit desperate. "Away from the war, out in the real world?"

"The number of people giving me orders is now approximately..." He pauses, quietly counting numbers with his fingers, then looks back up at Liam. "Zero. So yeah, I'm thrilled!" A laugh bursts out of him, and Liam isn't sure exactly how someone so unfailingly cheerful could exist but he's glad he's existing in Liam's universe.

They grab pizza from a place Niall calls "the absolute best place in New York, honestly!" and take it to the Lincoln Memorial to eat. Liam admits that it's probably the best slice he's ever tasted, but he's not sure how much that has to do with _Big Ed's Pizza Palace_ and how much it has to do with the company.

"Are you thinking about getting out?" Niall asks him around a mouthful of cheese.

"Yes," Liam says. "No. I don't know." He shrugs, helpless. "I don't know what else I would do."

"Kickboxing," Niall suggests immediately. "Worldwide wrestling."

Liam snorts, but Niall swallows his pizza and stares at him, his eyes serious. "You can do whatever you want to do. You know that, right?"

And Liam has to look away, pretend to be studying a bee buzzing around a flower nearby, because Niall's voice has too much sincerity for him to handle and he doesn't want to think about the last person who believed in him this much.

"I don't know what I want to do," he says quietly.

"All right, what makes you happy?" Niall's voice is patient, but Liam feels frustration building up inside of him.

"I don't know." It's true, because happiness had never been a _thing_ for him-- it had been a person, a night on the pier, the stars above and his cotton candy smile.

"There's got to be _something_ ," Niall presses, and why won't he just leave him alone on this? "When did you feel happiest?"

This isn't fun anymore, but Niall is looking at him so intensely that he has no choice but to remember missions with Harry, sharing a tin-can meal with Harry, the way it felt to be so in-sync with another person, to know that someone was always looking out for him.

But Harry is gone now. Harry can't be his happiness. And when he takes Harry out of it, all that's left is a kid from Brooklyn who just wants to help people.

He clears his throat. "I always liked the idea of saving people," he says, and admitting it feels like ripping away a vital part of his shield, but Niall's looking at him so earnest and encouraging that he keeps going. "I think I might have liked to be a firefighter. If I hadn't enlisted."

Niall nods, a smile creeping over his face. "A firefighter! Brilliant. That wasn't so hard, right?" He frowns suddenly. "Gonna have to find you a new name, though. Captain Flame, maybe. The Hot Chief."

"Shut it."

"Mr. Sizzle?" Niall's laughing so hard he can barely speak. "The Flamemaster?"

Liam groans and stands up. "I'm leaving now."

"You can't run away from your destiny, Payno!" Niall calls from behind him, and Liam can still hear his cackle from all the way down the block.


	6. Chapter 6

_When is a monster not a monster?_

_Oh, when you are the reason it has become so mangled._

 

So maybe he isn't all the way better-- maybe he'll never be, maybe his cracks will always be visible-- but he can handle this world. He has Niall and Louis, he has a job to distract himself, and he can do this. Life becomes routine-- jogging with Niall, helping out at the V.A. office, S.H.I.E.L.D missions with Louis. His visits to the museum happen less often, as do the nightmares. He can handle this.

Except one night he comes home from dinner with Niall, and Cowell's in his apartment, bruised and bleeding, and what happens next is a nightmare come to lift-- an explosion that blasts out the window in his living room, a shot that knocks Cowell off his feet, and a dark figure sprinting away. Liam leaves Cowell with his neighbor, a nice nurse named Leigh-Anne who he's spoken to a couple times before-- she's apparently an undercover S.H.I.E.L.D agent, and Liam's going to have a talk with Cowell about sending people to spy on him, but he doesn't have time to think about that now, only has time to grab his shield and _run._

It takes him longer than it should to catch up to the shooter on a rooftop a couple buildings away from his. He finds out why when he launches his shield at his back and the man spins around and catches it with a metal arm. Of course. Things are never that easy.

And then the man lifts his face, and things get much, much harder. Because the bottom half of his face is obscured by a black mask, but for a second Liam thinks he sees someone he used to know in his eyes. The second of hesitation is all it takes for the man to fling the shield at him, and Liam's too shaken up to brace himself. His own shield slams into his stomach, and he gasps a little at the force of it, which pushes him back against the door to the roof. By the time he regains his breath and his balance, the man with the metal arm is gone. He rushes to the edge of the roof to look out, but there's nothing but skyscrapers and too many twinkling lights staring back at him.

Later, when they've delivered Cowell to S.H.I.E.L.D's medical unit and Louis asks Liam to describe the attacker, he gives only the facts. He doesn't tell Louis how the man got away, because then he would probably be pulled off the front lines, stuck talking to a doctor or a therapist about PTSD. And he can't afford to waste that kind of time. He has to find whoever it was that shot Cowell. It goes beyond avenging his boss-- there's something in his gut pulling him toward the man, and if there's one thing he's learned it's that in war-time, you always trust your gut.

He's disappointed when Louis shows up with intel a few days later. Apparently the man with the metal arm is called the Winter Soldier, has been responsible for hundreds of deaths over the past 50 years, and is virtually untraceable. A ghost story. Information is what Liam had wanted, but now that he has it, he doesn't feel satisfied. There's just a vague sense of unease, growing stronger every moment and sitting heavy in his stomach.

***

The bullet in Cowell's chest went too deep, and he doesn't make it. Just like that, like this was a planned catalyst the entire time, HYDRA reveals itself within S.H.I.E.L.D's ranks and Liam and Louis are on the run. They can't be the only ones who are still loyal to Cowell's regime, but Louis points out that they can hardly go around interviewing everyone and administering lie detector tests, so Liam borrows a car and they're off. He doesn't even know where he's driving, just knows they have to get away as quickly as possible.

"What a fucking day," Louis says, and he turns his head to blow a line of smoke out the window. When had he even lit a cigarette?

"Hey, put that out. This is a rental."

"You hot-wired it," Louis points out.

"Well, yes, but I'm going to return it!"

Louis makes a face at him, but he flicks the butt out the window. Liam bites back a comment about the well-being of the environment, but he just as soon regrets it, because apparently even while being hunted down by HYDRA, Louis has a one-track mind.

"So you really don't have anybody special in your life?"

Liam's jaw clenches of its own accord. "Believe it or not, it's difficult to find someone with shared life experiences." He tries to keep his voice light, but Louis isn't S.H.I.E.L.D's top agent for nothing. He must notice his tension.

"Just make up a life story, then."

Liam snorts. "That's not a great way to get to know somebody."

Louis hums in agreement. "Great way to stay alive, though."

He turns away to look out the window, uncharacteristically silent, and for once, it's Liam left with the choice to push further or drop it. He drops it. No good alienating the one person on his side. But one day he's going to get Louis to trust him, to tell him how he ended up in New York with a smile full of secrets.

Liam ends up driving to Niall's. He hates to ask, hates to drag Niall back into the warpath, but everyone else he knows is either dead or trying to kill them, so his options are limited. To his credit, Niall barely even bats an eyelash when he and Louis show up on his front doorstep.

"Bathroom?" Louis asks, shouldering his way past Niall like he owns the place.

"Upstairs," Niall says, stifling a yawn.

"That's, uh, Louis. The guy I work with that I was telling you about?"

Niall nods, his eyes sleepy and bemused.

"Sorry, I know it's early, we just didn't have anywhere else to go," Liam says.

"No worries, man." Niall shuffles into the kitchen, leaving Liam to follow. "You had breakfast yet?"

It's weird, sitting with Louis in Niall's kitchen, discussing how deep S.H.I.E.L.D's corruption runs over bowls of Lucky Charms.

It gets even weirder when Niall leaves the room for a moment while Louis and Liam are talking strategy and returns with a brown folder that he drops in the middle of the table without a word. Liam reaches for it, but Louis snatches it first.

"What's this?" he asks as Louis flicks through the papers. It looks like military files. There are pictures of Niall in combat gear.

"My resume," Niall says, and Liam's about to ask what he means when Louis flips to a picture of him in the middle of the sky, held up only by a costume outfitted with what appear to be fully functional wings.

 _Okay,_ Liam thinks. _Okay, Niall wasn't just a pilot._ "You said you were a pilot."

"Well, technically _you_ did. I just didn't correct you." He sounds slightly guilty and he's worrying at his lip like Liam's going to be mad at him.

 _My resume_  .

Liam shakes his head. "I'm not going to ask you to do this. You got out. I'm not dragging you back in, Niall."

He crosses his arms. "You need my help. There's no better reason to get back in."

Liam takes in his set jaw and the fierceness in his eyes and knows nothing he says is going to change Niall's mind. So he nods, just once, and pushes away the memories of the last man he asked to follow him into battle.

They sleep early at Niall's that night, with plans to break into the military base housing what Niall calls his Falcon suit the next morning. Liam settles onto Niall's couch and falls asleep pretty quickly, but the dreams are more vivid than usual, too. Now, instead of seeing the old war in his nightmares, he sees the one he's living. The man with the metal arm is there, killing everyone he knows or knew. Cowell is shot, and Niall. Louis. Sophia. And Harry, over and over, until Liam can't even recognize his face anymore. And all he can do is stand there, frozen, and watch it happen.

***

So it's Liam, Louis, and Niall now. They're the only people left alive that Liam can trust, and he feels like he barely even knows them. It's funny, when he thinks about it. He used to have Harry, who he knew like he knew himself, who he grew up with, and now...

"What's so funny?" Niall glances at Liam from the driver's seat.

He shakes his head. "Nothing."

"You'll get used to the whole strong, noble, and silent treatment," Louis calls from the backseat, where he's twirling his knife between his fingers. Next to him sits a HYDRA hostage who they need to break into S.H.I.E.L.D's headquarters. He's eyeing Louis and the sharp blade nervously. "But underneath it all, he's warm as a teddy bear, aren't you, Payno?"

"You're ruining my reputation in front of our guest, Louis," Liam says. Beside him, Niall hides a smile.

He doesn't have to know their whole life story to trust them.

They're miles from S.H.I.E.L.D when the windows in the backseat explode in a cascade of shimmering glass, and their hostage is dragged out of the car, screaming his head off, and flung across the highway barrier into oncoming traffic.

The next thirty seconds pass in a blur of snapshots:

Louis, jumping into the front seat, narrowly avoiding the bullets raining down from the ceiling, curling into Liam and using his foot to push Niall away from another bullet.

Niall slamming on the brakes and a dark figure flying from the roof of their car and tumbling onto the road.

The man with the metal arm and the black mask standing up without a bruise and racing toward their car.

The shock clears then and makes room for adrenaline, but before Liam can jump into action, a car slams into them from behind and he's jolted forward. Louis is still curled into him, reaching for something near his feet, and Liam only has a second to wonder what it is before there's a _thump_ on the roof and a metal arm punches through, grabs the steering wheel, and rips it out of Niall's hands. There are loud gunshots sounding near his head, and he moves to grab Niall before he realizes it's coming from the small black pistol in Louis' hand.

Then the Winter Soldier is gone, but their car is being lifted into the air. Liam manages to pull them all out before it flips over. He uses his shield to protect them from the ground and covers the others with his body before all three of them are tumbling out of the passenger side and landing in an unceremonious heap on the asphalt.

The Winter Soldier advances, a nasty-looking gun pointing right at them. Louis leaps to his feet, his teeth bared like a wildcat, five foot nine inches-- if that-- and a handgun against HYDRA's best war technology. Liam shoves him to the side before he can launch himself toward his death and ducks behind his shield right before the Soldier shoots. He hears the blast before he feels it, the deafening clang of it reverberating off the titanium of his shield, and then he's lifted off his feet and thrown through the air.

He comes to a few moments later where he's landed in an overturned bus. There's smoke in the air, and the seats are where the windows should be, but he's not dead yet, which means one thing.

He's not the only target. He has to get to Louis and Niall, and he has to help these civilians, and he has to find his shield, and--

More bullets ripping through the walls of the bus like it's made out of fabric. He has to leave _now_ , or the innocent people on this bus are going to die. He spots his shield lying a few feet away, grabs it, and sprints for the door. The bullets follow him away from where the civilians are huddled in the back. He bursts out of the bus and raises his shield to cover his face. He can't see how many he's facing but he can feel the force of hundreds of bullets raining into his shield.

And then the rhythm changes, and out of his peripheral vision he sees one agent dropping, and then another. He lifts his gaze. Niall's gotten hold of a gun and is on the overpass, picking them off one by one. He's hitting them every time, he must be as good a marksman as Ha--

 _No_. Not now. There are still bullets coming at him from every direction, he can't let the past take over now, he has to _focus_ , has to find Louis and regroup and figure out the next plan.

He throws his shield, taking out three shooters in a row, and ducks behind an overturned car for cover. Niall handles two more, but there's still one left, hunkered down behind another car ten feet away. Every time Niall rises up to shoot at him, he's met with an answering shot, and he's at an angle that Louis can't reach with his shield.

Suddenly there's screaming from a few blocks down. Liam looks up at Niall.

"Go!" Niall shouts, ducking down as a bullet whizzes past his ear and then popping back up to return fire. "I'm good, go!"

Another scream, followed by the unmistakable sound of gunshots. He doesn't have time to worry about Niall. He has to stop this before more innocent people are hurt. He waits until the shooter is occupied, then darts out from behind the car and grabs his shield.

He sprints down the block toward the shouting and the crying. People are running past him, abandoning their cars and racing into nearby buildings or back where Liam came from. He hopes to hell that Niall manages to take out the shooter before the civilians arrive, or these people won't be any safer where they're going.

He hears Louis before he sees him, which isn't unusual, really. Except he doesn't think he's ever heard him sound quite so afraid.

"Get out of the way!" Louis is screaming, and then there's a crowd of frantic people pushing past Liam. The Winter Soldier is up ahead, standing on the roof of a car, but where's Louis, where's--

The Soldier aims, shoots, and Louis' voice is silenced mid-shout.

 _No._  

Liam jumps forward, shield swinging around to smash into the side of the Winter Soldier's head, but his metal arm comes up too fast for Liam to track it and slams against the shield with a deafening _clang._ The force that Liam put behind the blow should have been enough to send a normal man staggering back, but the Soldier just stands there, his eyes narrowed. And then he kicks Liam's chest and sends him falling back off the car. He slams into the pavement and his head is pounding but he doesn't have time to get his bearings. He crouches there on the ground, his shield raised to cover him, his heart trying to push its way out of his chest. This shouldn't be happening. Not again. Nobody this strong should exist. And yet here he is, hiding behind a shield to avoid getting destroyed by some indestructible assassin...

 _Everybody has a weakness._  

He spits a glob of blood out the side of his mouth onto the pavement. Okay. So what's the weakness of an unstoppable assassin?

He's so caught up in the question that he almost doesn't notice the sudden silence.

Even unstoppable assassins need to reload. And one thing assassins don't like-- becoming the target.

He lifts his shield and rolls to the side in one fluid movement. The shots follow him, tearing up the ground where he was crouching just a second before. But a second is all he needs, a second for the Winter Soldier to reload. He jumps off the roof of a nearby car to land behind the Soldier, swings his arm around, and _yes_ , he wasn't expecting it, he can't react fast enough to--

To turn around and whip Liam's shield from his hands and shove him back with it, the second time Liam has had his own defense weaponized against him.

And now? Now he's angry.

Now he only has his fists and his anger, and that's all that stands between the Winter Soldier and Louis dead or bleeding to death on the ground and Niall and the rest of New York, so Liam takes that anger and wraps his fists up in it and he lunges at the Winter Soldier like it's just another fight outside a bar.

Only Harry won't show up to save him this time, so it's all or nothing.

The Winter Soldier dodges his first punch, but his cross connects with a satisfying thud, and his head whips back. Liam spares a fierce grin. It's a good thing he took up boxing instead of therapy.

But his satisfaction is short-lived, because the Soldier recovers quickly, kneeing him in the stomach and using his shield to slam him sideways into a car, and Liam can't pretend this is just him fighting some bully. Because bullies he can understand. Bullies are angry, bullies feel like they've been wronged and they want to make you pay for it.

The Winter Soldier isn't a bully. Liam raises his hand to block a punch, meets the Soldier's eyes as their arms are locked and has to resist the urge to shudder. There's nothing there. No anger, no hatred. Just a dark, empty, cold stare. His eyes are a tundra. Liam understands now how he got his name.

He gets his shield back when the Soldier reaches to pull out a knife, but it's not much help. Liam is trained to assess situations, to evaluate the odds of success based on a variety of tactical factors. He knows when he's outmatched. The Winter Soldier is faster than him, stronger than him, and is fighting to kill whereas Liam's fighting to capture. He's been on the defensive nearly this entire fight, struggling to keep up. He's only got two squad members, one caught in a shootout and the other out of action.

This is, to put it mildly, a total disaster. He knows it, and the Winter Soldier has to know it.

So why is Liam still alive? He's not so proud to delude himself into thinking he's actually holding his own here. He's bruised and bleeding and he's slowing down. The Soldier could have killed him by now-- _should_ have killed him by now. Is Liam imagining it, or did his knife hesitate a second before slashing downward? Or did he hold back that blow that could have knocked Liam out cold? Or did he pull his arm back too far before throwing a punch, giving Liam just enough time to read his body language and duck out of the way?

He's losing, he knows that. But he should have lost by now.

Another jab of the knife almost cuts his throat, so he jumps back and pushes his questions away where they can't distract him.

The Soldier runs toward him and in a panic, he throws his shield. It connects with the Soldier's jaw, knocking him back, and with a _crack_ his mask falls to the ground.

When he looks back on this moment, what he remembers most is the silence, thick in the air, choking out the sounds of sirens and people shouting in the distance. The silence wraps itself around his throat.

The Winter Soldier turns around, his head bowed, straggly hair hanging like a curtain over his face.

He lifts his head, stares at Liam with those green eyes, and this can't be real, he must be asleep, any moment he'll wake up on his too-soft bed, drenched in sweat. This can't be real, because there is a stranger standing in front of him wearing Harry's face and the silence in between them is deafening. Liam doesn't know how long he stands there, his heart slamming against his chest and his head spinning.

 _Not him_ , he tells himself. _It's not him._ But there's knowing and there's seeing, and even if Liam knows it's not his Harry, he sees green eyes and lips the color of summer and he feels an ache in his chest, a coldness that never went away after he came out of the ice. It lives somewhere deep in his bones, somewhere just beneath his neck, right where Harry's hand would rest when he'd sling his arm around Liam's chest and pull him back into an embrace. It used to wake him up sometimes, and even when his shirt would cling to his chest, damp with sweat, the coldness lingered. Liam asked Niall about it once, about soldiers who carry their injuries with them years after the wounds have healed. Niall called it a phantom limb, a ghost pain that haunts and hurts like it's real. It's not until now that Liam fully understands, as he's staring down his own personal ghost five blocks and seventy years away from the street they grew up on.

He's never believed in ghost stories, but then, he never used to believe in superheroes, either. So he sucks in a shaky breath and holsters his rapid-fire heart, and when he whispers "Harry?" he believes in it more than he's believed in anything. And he lets this belief cradle him as the ghost's green eyes search his own, but then his voice isn't sticky deep molasses like Liam remembers-- it's hoarse, it's a death rattle asking "Who the hell is Harry?" and Liam comes crashing back into reality.

Winter is cold, and calm, and quiet, and Liam feels this all, along with the startling clarity that the most important person in his life has no idea who he is, who they are to each other.

The man who used to be Harry Styles lifts his gun and sights it right down the middle of Liam's forehead. Harry rarely missed a shot, would never miss at such close-range, and Liam knows he has to get out of the way if he doesn't want to die, but... But. He's not sure what he wants anymore.

He thinks he sees something in Harry, a flicker of uncertainty, maybe, but then he can't stand to look past the barrel of a gun just to see those green eyes again, seeing but not knowing, so he closes his eyes and trusts in his memories instead.

The silence is infiltrated by a crash a second later as Niall appears out of nowhere and slams into Harry from behind, knocking him off his feet. He scrambles back up, gun in hand, and glances down at it, his brow furrowed like suddenly he doesn't remember how to use it.

Liam hates himself for being such a hopeful fool, but he can't help it, he takes a step forward.

But the moment passes before Liam has the chance to say anything. Harry shakes his head, nearly imperceptibly, and then the gun comes up to point at Liam again. He hears Niall shout his name, and then something goes whistling just past his ear and Harry is once again knocked off his feet, but this time by a bullet that tears through his leg. Liam whirls around to look at Niall, but he shakes his head and jerks his thumb toward Louis. He's barely standing upright, blood dripping down from the bullet wound in his shoulder. He drops the gun in his hands, leans against an overturned car, and lifts his uninjured arm into the air in a mock salute.

The celebration is short-lived. Within seconds, they're surrounded by at least five S.H.I.E.L.D. vehicles and ten times as many armed agents.

"Drop your weapons!" the one closest to Liam barks. He feels Louis and Niall looking at him, waiting for his command, and he almost smiles. He doesn't even have control of his past anymore, let alone his present. He drops his shield, lets himself be pushed onto his knees and handcuffed. There's a gun pointed at his head but Liam can't be bothered to look at it. All he can see is Harry, lying prone on the ground a couple feet away, close enough to touch but further away now than he was even in death.

They lift him to his feet and shove him into one of the vans. He barely registers Niall and Louis being pushed in after him because all he can see is those eyes boring into him. He thinks he may be suffocating.

The facts, then. He can start with the facts.

  1. Liam watched Harry fall 70 years ago.
  2. Liam had gone back for the body, several times, but winter in Germany creates more unmarked graves than they could count, and he never saw exactly where Harry landed.
  3. The fall, from that height and with the added speed of the train, should have killed Harry instantly. And if that didn't do the trick, the cold should have.
  4. Harry wouldn't be the first ghost who managed to evade death.
  5. The Winter Soldier is Harry Styles.



He doesn't realize he's muttered this last thought aloud until Niall asks him what he said.

"It was him," he says, staring down at his hands cuffed in his lap. "It was Harry. He looked right at me."

"Because he was trying to _kill_ you," Louis says. "Bit hard to do that with his eyes closed."

"No, he--" Liam bites off his words and shakes his head in frustration. "He could have killed me, all right? But he didn't. He looked right at me, and..." _And he didn't know me._ This time, when Liam cuts himself off, it's because he doesn't trust his voice not to crack. He takes a surging breath, pushes back the stinging sensation in his eyes, and anchors on to the one thing he knows for sure. "It was him."

Louis and Niall exchange a Look, like Liam's some stubborn kid who still believes in Santa Claus and they're not quite sure how to break the truth to him.

"But how is that possible?" Niall asks, his voice careful and gentle, his eyes searching Liam's face. "He died like 70 years ago, right?"

Liam clenches his fists, feels the cold cuffs straining against his skin. He wants to shout at Niall and Louis for not believing him. He wants to rip out of these cuffs even if it tears his skin to shreds. He wants to kill every HYDRA agent who had anything to do with taking Harry away and turning him into something cold and cruel.

But he knows he can't do any of that. _We left humanity behind_. He needs Niall and Louis to keep him grounded. He needs their help to fix this mess. And more than anything, he needs them to understand what he already understands, so he knows he's not losing his mind. So he clears away the anger and the vengeance rising up inside, and as soon as he does, everything falls into place.

"Zola," he says, and Louis nods slightly, connecting the pieces immediately, but Niall still looks confused. "HYDRA's scientist. They captured Harry's battalion, and when I went to rescue him-- his squad-- I found Harry strapped down in some sort of lab. They were experimenting on him." With the certainty that he's right comes another surge of anger that scares Liam with its overwhelming strength. He struggles to push it down again. It will be more useful later. "Whatever they did to him must have helped him survive the fall. And when I couldn't find him... they did."

Louis is looking at him far too shrewdly. Liam averts his gaze.

"None of this is your fault, Liam." There's a heaviness in Louis' voice that he's not used to.

"Even when I had nothing, I had Harry. He always had my back, he _trusted_ me, and I--" There's a lump in Liam's throat that won't let him speak.

Louis' head falls back against the wall of the van, and Liam thinks it's because he's frustrated until he remembers that Harry-- the Winter Soldier-- had shot him. The wound in his shoulder is still pulsing out a river of dark blood.

Niall's noticed it, too, and he turns to the two masked armed guards sitting like statues near the front of the van. "He needs a doctor," he says, his voice low and urgent.

He may as well have been speaking to statues. The guards make no indication that they heard him.

"If we don't put pressure on that wound, he's going to bleed out," Niall says, louder this time, and he's barely finished his sentence when one of the guards whips out a long black taser, electricity ripping blue and bright along the side.

The air is tense and hot, nobody daring to move, and then without any warning the guard fires the taser into the other guard, who jolts at the shock and then crumples over in his seat.

Nobody says anything for a moment, and then Louis cracks open an eye and says, "What the _fuck_?"

The guard stows the taser and whips off the helmet, and then Agent Edwards is grinning at them.

"Hot in there!" Perrie chirps brightly, smoothing back a strand of hair that's plastered to her forehead. "So, boys. How do we feel about escaping?"


	7. Chapter 7

_Here is your humble offering, obliterated and broken in the mouth of this abandoned church._

_You had him first, and you would let the world break its own neck if it means keeping him._

 

Perrie takes them to an underground bunker miles away from the city. Niall jokes that he feels like some sort of super spy, and Louis, blood seeping through his fingers from where he's holding his shoulder, mutters that the job's not all it's cut out to be.

They go deeper and deeper into the bunker, and Liam is just about to ask Perrie how long it'll take when she leads them into a makeshift hospital room, where Cowell is sitting up in bed like he was waiting for them.

"You're alive," Liam says, more because he feels he should say something than anything else.

"You don't seem that surprised," Cowell notes. His skin is a bit grayer than usual, his voice a bit less steely, but it's unmistakably him.

"Yeah, well, you're not the first person to come back from the dead today."

Cowell sighs and rubs his temple. "Do I want to know what you mean by that?"

So Liam tells him everything that's happened since he went under. Some of it he already knew, from Perrie probably, but Liam can tell from the points where his eyebrows raise practically into his hairline what's news to him. To his surprise, Cowell doesn't put up much of a fight when Liam tells him S.H.I.E.L.D has to be destroyed. Maybe dying has improved his temper. Anyway, Liam would have destroyed it one way or another, with or without clearance. This just makes the job easier.

"Looks like you're giving the orders now, Captain," Cowell says.

Liam nods, and then he walks out of the room and up the stairs until he reaches the roof, because good leaders don't show weakness in front of their soldiers.

And good leaders don't show fear.

The thing is, Liam _is_ afraid. More afraid than he's ever been in his life, and the fear is like a living creature crawling underneath his skin. He's scared for New York City and for the rest of the world. He's scared more people will get hurt or killed. He's selfish-scared, too. Scared he'll lose more people who are important to him-- Louis, with his constant teasing and loud, brash laugh and the bright blue eyes that get soft when he sees kids and couples. Niall, kind Niall with his big heart and even bigger smile that makes Liam want to tell him every worry that's ever crossed his mind. Perrie, Leigh-Anne, Cowell, anyone being forced to work for S.H.I.E.L.D could be killed so easily... yet here they are, tossing their trust at Liam like it's nothing, like it's not the heaviest weight of all.

And Harry. Always Harry. Liam is scared for Harry most of all. He remembers when his mom died, when Harry asked Liam to move in with him, all earnest eyes and dimpled smile. And Liam had refused, because he wanted to be strong, and independent, and capable-- not a little kid anymore.

He still remembers that conversation, him turning away to open the door to his mom's old place and saying, "Thanks, H, but I can take care of myself."

And Harry snorting, hooking his chin over Liam's shoulder, taking the key from his shaking hand and unlocking the door for him.

"Yeah, I know. But you don't have to. I'm with you 'til the end of the line."

His voice quiet when he says it, his mouth brushing Liam's ear.

Like it was a secret. But a secret is just a fragile promise, and promises can be broken just like people can.

If Liam could go back to that moment, he would take that secret and all the rest of them that they had buried when the moon was high and the thrill of being young was buzzing through their veins, and he would say _Yes, H, of course I'll move in with you_ , as easy as that. And they would put the couch cushions on the floor like they did when they were thirteen, feet hanging off the edges and toes tickling the floor.

If he could go back, he would wake up in Harry's living room, Harry curled up between his arms, his head resting near Liam's shoulder, and Liam would go out and buy vases and put their secrets in the sunlight on the windowsill, and the war would never find them, and they would never grow up before they had to.

Niall's the one who comes to find him about an hour later. He doesn't say anything, just stands next to Liam, shoulder to shoulder, and together they watch the sun set over the treetops. He thinks Niall would probably stand with him in silence the whole night if Liam wanted, but suddenly the quiet just puts him back on that bridge with a ghost, and if he doesn't say something he might explode.

"Are you scared?" It's the first thing out of his mouth, and he wants to take it back, but Niall's already nodding.

"'Course," he says, without a moment of hesitation. "You?"

Liam shrugs. "Not really." They both know he's lying.

Niall cuts right to the heart of Liam's terror. "You know he's going to be there, right?"

He closes his eyes for a second, wills his voice not to shake. "I know."

Niall turns to him now, no pretenses, but Liam can't look at him.

"Look, whoever he used to be, the guy he is now..." His voice falters.

Liam doesn't need him to finish his sentence, desperately needs him _not_ to, but Niall persists, more firmly now.

"I don't think he's the kind of guy you save now. He's the kind you stop."

Liam doesn't say anything, he can't say anything, but then Niall says his name, more like a question, really, and something in Liam crumples.

"I don't know if I can do that," he admits, soft and small like he's seventeen and at his mother's funeral again.

Niall's voice is very, very careful when he says, "I don't know if you'll have a choice, Liam. He doesn't know you."

It's what he's been telling himself for hours, as he replayed the scene from earlier over and over in his head. _He doesn't know me, he doesn't know me, he doesn't know me_ , until the words began to run together, until they lost all meaning, until all he's left with is a fact. A promise. A secret.

"He will."

***

For a suicide mission, they've been doing remarkably well. Perrie has managed to take over the control tower, Louis and Cowell are up in headquarters watching over the launch system, and with Niall in the Falcon suit, he and Liam have been able to take out two of the three helicarriers targeting twenty million people around the world who pose a threat to HYDRA's plot.

S.H.I.E.L.D. is in disarray with half the agents choosing to follow Liam and the other half HYDRA agents fighting to regain control. They don't have nearly as many people on their side as Liam thought they would, but he's starting to think it may just be enough. Even amidst all this chaos, he's feeling almost hopeful as he and Niall jog toward the last carrier. He doesn't see the dark shape hurtling toward them until it's too late and a kick to his chest sends him flyng off the side of the carrier.

He swings his arms around widely, his fingers grasping desperately for something, _anything_ to grab on to-- and then, thankfully, he catches a metal pipe sticking out of the engines and his arm nearly jolts out of its socket, but he grits his teeth and pulls himself up, stomach scraping against metal.

So maybe it's not his most graceful move, but it's better than being dead.

 _"Liam, you all right, man?"_ Niall's voice comes crackling through his ear piece.

He presses his finger to the button so he can talk. "Yeah, I'm still on the carrier!"

 _"I'm--"_ Niall cuts out suddenly, and then Liam sees one of the Falcon's metal wings come twirling down from above 

"Niall? Are you okay?"

Liam peers up at the steep, smooth sides of the carrier. There's no way he can climb them. He'll just have to jump.

"Niall?"

Still nothing. He sizes up the distance between the engine and the loading paddock. If he could get a running start, he could clear it no problem, but from a stand-still...

A stream of gunshots rings out from the roof, and Liam feels his heart somewhere in his throat.

"Don't kill him!" Liam shouts, although he's not quite sure who he's giving orders to. The shots keep coming, even faster now, more desperate, and there's no time to think. So he jumps.

He lands on the dock with a quarter of an inch to spare, and when he turns back he sees a body go whooshing through the open sky. He looks over the edge and can just make out a shock of blond hair before Niall pulls his parachute, and then he can breathe again.

He's already turned away and started climbing up the interior stairs when Niall's voice comes back through his ears, low and frustrated.

_"I'm grounded. Sorry, Captain."_

"Don't worry, I've got this!" Liam hopes he sounds more confident than he feels. "Go help Perrie hold Control."

If he's honest with himself, it's a relief to reach the top and sees Harry standing alone on the helicarrier's walkway, like he was waiting for him to arrive. It had been Harry and Liam ever since he can remember, and it would be the same now. The two of them staring each other down at the end of the world. There was never really any other way their story could go.

He's just standing there, his arms hanging by his sides, his eyes tracking Liam like a cat. There's no sign of recognition in his eyes, but at least he isn't actively trying to kill Liam this time. Or, well. Not yet. He has to use this moment before it's gone, before whatever they've done to Harry sets in again and he turns into the Winter Soldier.

"People are going to die, H." He's amazed that he's able to keep his voice from shaking, that he can look into the cold eyes of a man who's killed an untold number of people and still think _Harry._ "You know I can't let that happen." He offers it up like an apology, but it's a peace offering, too. "You can stop this."

Nothing. No acknowledgment that he's even being heard, just that cold, impassive stare that's completely foreign to Liam. He takes a step forward, toward the carrier's center command console. If he can just reach it and pull out the engine's processing chip, Perrie can redirect the targets away...

But as soon as he moves forward, Harry's hand flies to the gun holstered at his waist.

 _Damn it!_ He wants to scream at Harry, to get in his face and yell _I'm right here in front of you, a clean shot! Just shoot me, then!_ But he takes a deep breath, looks Harry straight in the eyes, and says, "Please don't make me do this" instead.

Harry's jaw drops just slightly, and it's a gesture so familiar in its stubbornness that Liam can almost pretend this is really Harry and not a stranger wearing his face.

Almost, but not quite.

He nods to himself, just once, and then it begins.

There's something different about this fight. Harry's movements are tighter now, more methodical. He's using two pistols this time. Liam feels a searing combination of pain and fear when Harry shoots him in the side. It's not bravery at all when he tries to convince himself that Harry's just trying to slow him down, that he could have easily shot him somewhere fatal.

Fighting Harry while simultaneously trying to punch in the numbers Perrie is shouting in his ear piece to eject the chip is harder than Liam thought it would be, and he already thought it would be nearly impossible. He collects a gash across his forehead from Harry's knife and what feels like a cracked rib from a well-placed kick, but through sheer force of will and a healthy dose of luck that connects Liam's fist with Harry's throat and sends him reeling back for a moment, he finally manages to key in the right code.

He's not a second too soon. The chip pops out into his hand, but then Harry tackles him and they both go crashing to the floor below, with nothing but the sky beside them. All the air gets knocked out of him. He scrambles to his feet, trying to catch his breath and avoid taking a wrong step and falling to his death, but he barely has time to get his bearings before Harry's back in front of him, sinking his knife into Liam's already wounded shoulder. He feels the metal scraping bone and sucks in a sharp breath, his hand instinctively moving to clutch at the wound, and Harry takes the opportunity to grab the helicarrier chip from him.

The pain and blood loss is making the room spin, but Liam needs that chip. He rears his head back and smashes it into Harry's, then pushes him back and rips the knife out of his arm.

 _It could have been my throat,_ he tells himself, but all he can hear is Niall saying _He doesn't know you._

He can't save both his best friend and the world.

 _"The bombs are dropping in one minute, Captain!"_ Perrie says through the coms, her voice tight with worry.

So Liam lunges forward, grabs his best friend by the throat, and squeezes as hard as he can.

"Drop the chip!" he shouts.

If anything, Harry grips it tighter, his metal arm grasping out, so Liam kicks his legs out from underneath him and follows him down to the ground.

"Drop it!" he screams, louder now, more desperate.

Harry is gasping, but he knees Liam's spine and flips him over. He manages to hold on to Harry's neck, squeezing even tighter.

How did they get from waking up tangled in each other's limbs to here?

Harry's grip is slightly looser, and Liam might be able to pry open his fingers but he knows letting go of his neck would be a colossally bad idea. Liam wrestles his way back on top. Harry's face is getting dangerously red.

"Drop it," he says again, his voice barely above a whisper. "Please, Harry." He doesn't realize he's crying until a tear drops onto Harry's cheek and traces its way toward his lips.

Harry drops it. His head falls back with a heavy thud, just inches from the edge of the carrier. Liam's heart thuds in his ears. He places two fingers on Harry's neck.

 _"Thirty seconds!"_ Perry shouts.

"Hold on, hold on," he mutters, his fingers moving frantically around Harry's neck. All he can feel is his own pulse throbbing hot and desperate under his skin.

But then he sees Harry's chest rise, nearly imperceptibly, but _there_ , alive.

He snatches up the chip, shoves it into his pocket, and sprints back up the stairs to the upper level and the control console.

It seems like he feels the shot before he hears it, and then he's stumbling into the railing, his hand flying to his thigh to feel warm blood seeping through the fabric. He forces himself to keep running, to stagger forward without looking back, but then another bullet tears its way through his arm and he nearly drops the chip. He spares a glance behind him. Harry's on the lower level, aiming a pistol at his forehead. He turns away, urges his legs to move faster. Another bullet races past his ear as he jumps the last steps to the control panel. He's reaching for the other chips when a bullet enters his lower stomach, sinking him to the ground like a stone in a river.

He doesn't believe it, he _can't_ believe it, even though he feels the blood pooling around him, because Harry would never try to kill him.

 _"Liam!"_ Perrie gasps. _"Five seconds!"_

It _hurts._ Dying hurts so much more than Liam would have imagined, but he presses the heel of his hand into his stomach and pulls himself to his feet. _Four._ He uses one hand to hold himself up on the railing, and with his other he plucks the chip out of his pocket. _Three._ His hand is covered in blood and the chip nearly slips out from between his fingers. _Two._ He's shaking so much, whether from pain or fear or shock, that the chip won't go in the slot.

_One._

But then he shoves it in, and there's a click and a long, drawn-out beep followed by silence.

And then Perrie's voice is coming through and he can hear the relief in her voice when she says, _"It worked! Now get out of there, we're ready to blow the carriers."_

He almost laughs. He lets himself sink down to the floor, lets his hand fall away from the wound in his stomach. He was wrong before. He _could_ save the world and his best friend. He thought Harry was the only ghost, but he's one, too. A ghost standing below him. A ghost living inside him, too. This world isn't theirs. It never was and it never would be. Not without each other. There was never really any other way their story could end.

"Do it now," Liam orders.

It takes Perrie a moment to understand what he means. "Liam, no."

"I can't move fast enough," he says through gritted teeth. "And we can't let Ha-- we can't let the Winter Soldier hurt anyone else."

"No, Liam, we can-- we can send Niall, or--"

"There's no time!" he shouts, and he's not Liam Payne anymore. "Do it _now._ "

He can hear Perrie's breath coming through, fast and heavy, but when she says, "Yes, Captain," her voice is calm.

The helicarrier shifts direction, angles toward the horizon instead of the city. Outside, he knows the other carriers are doing the same, forming a triangle to face each other.

The air erupts around them.

 _Look, Harry. Fireworks._

He watches as missiles rip away the roof of the carrier. Not a bad send-off. It's only missing one thing.

He crawls more than he walks down the stairs, and then a missile explodes behind him and tosses him through the air to land in a heap at the bottom. Flames all around him, and the heat is more intense now than when he took the serum and his insides lit up. He'll be damned if this is the last thing he sees. So despite the blood dripping out of him, despite the heat and the pain, he forces himself to crawl toward where he last saw Harry. He hears a long, tortured moan from where most of the wreckage landed when the first missile hit, and when he pulls himself over there he finds Harry being crushed underneath a smoking section of the caved-in roof.

He knows he should leave him there, but one look at the anguish in Harry's eyes and Liam knows he can't do it. They're both dying, anyway. He summons the last vestiges of his strength and heaves on the roof. With Harry pushing from underneath, they manage to lift the roof off his body and Harry rolls out from under its weight. He lands on his knees and crouches there, holding his wrist against his chest.

"Harry," Liam calls softly, like he's trying to calm a wild animal. Maybe it's hopeless, but it's the end of the world and he's nothing if not persistent.

Harry shakes his head, a quick jerking motion to either side. "Don't call me that," he growls.

"You _know_ me, Harry--" Liam starts to say, but before he can finish Harry lurches to his feet and swings a punch.

"No I DON'T!" he shouts, his eyes wild.

Liam sees the punch coming but he lets Harry's knuckles kiss his cheek. He knows he deserves it. In a sick way, the pain feels good. It's the closest he'll ever get to a caress.

He's on the ground now, his face is bleeding, but he can't stop. It's like he's been possessed. It's fitting, really, to give his last words to Harry. He's given him everything else.

"Harry," he says again, spitting out a mouthful of blood.

He stops, his fist drawn back, and looks at Liam the same way Liam looks at him.

Like he's seeing a ghost.

"You've known me your whole life," Liam says quietly. Pieces of the ceiling are falling down around them, but it's just Liam and Harry at the end of their world.

Harry's still looking at him, his brow furrowed, his bottom lip trembling slightly, but then he tears his gaze away and with a roar, he draws back and slams his fist into the side of Liam's head.

He's reeling now, but he's never had a mission so important. He blinks back the fuzziness in his vision and pulls himself to his feet.

"Your name is Harry Edward Styles."

"SHUT UP!" Harry screams, his voice so hoarse it's almost a sob, and with another punch he sends Liam crashing back onto the ground.

He forces himself onto his knees. Harry's breathing is heavy, but he lets out a strangled groan when Liam pulls himself back up.

"I'm not going to fight you."

Liam drops his shield, lets it fall through a hole in the floor, his eyes on Harry as it spins through the smoke to the Potomac river below. He thinks he'll feel something at its loss, but really, he's still got a shield. Harry just doesn't remember. He's swaying slightly, but he wills himself to stay upright.

"I won't fight you," he says again. "You're my best friend."

And it's more than that, of course, it's always been more than that with them. He wants to say, "You mean the most to me." He wants to say, "I trust you more than anyone." He wants to say, "I wish I'd died instead of you." Most of all, he wants to say, "I love you, I love you, I love you." But the truth is complicated, and Liam is more scared of it than the end of the world.

Harry's got a pained expression on his face and Liam wonders for a moment if he can read his mind, but then his mouth hardens and his eyes become steel. He tackles Liam back to the ground, one hand pushing his chest into the floor, his face so close that his hair tickles Liam's lips.

"You're my mission," he chokes out, and he drives his fist into Liam's face, again and again and again until Liam can't keep count, can only breathe in the blood and the pain like a religious offering.

He tries to say, "You're my mission, too," but he can't open his mouth and his vision keeps blacking out. He closes his eyes. This isn't how he wants to imagine Harry.

He knows they say your life flashes before your eyes when you die, but all Liam sees is Harry. Not the Harry HYDRA stole and broke and twisted, but the Harry Liam knew. Gentle fingers showing Liam how to braid hair, how to knead dough. Lips opened in a smile too big for his face, running away from the sparklers they set off in the streets. The way his eyes lit up when they passed a dog on the street and turned to Liam as if he needed permission to pet it. Cold nights and big hearts and warm, exploring lips in the middle of summer.

It takes him a moment to realize the punches have stopped.

He tries to open his eyes but one is swollen shut. Harry is staring down at him, blood running from a cut on his forehead to drop onto Liam, mingling with the blood from his own wounds.

"You're my mission," he whispers, his fist hovering in the air, knuckles squeezed tight together.

"Then finish it," Liam tells him. "'Cause I'm with you 'til the end of the line."

He thinks he sees it-- the exact moment Harry remembers. His eyes widen, and it's like a light inside them has switched on, like all the radiance that is Harry comes rushing back to the surface.

Liam smiles through cracked and bloody lips and opens his mouth to say something, but with a creaking groan the floor falls out from underneath him.

And now it is Liam falling, Liam staring up and seeing the pain in Harry's eyes, Liam reaching an arm out to say _help me_ or _I'm sorry_ or _it's okay._

Dying is as easy now as it was the first time. He sinks into the river, and he lets go.


	8. Chapter 8

_Start by wiping the blood off of his chin and  pretending to understand._

_Start by pulling him out of a fire and putting him back together with the pieces you find on the floor._

 

Living is harder.

He wakes up in a hospital room. Again. This time, though, he's not alone. Niall's sitting in an uncomfortable looking chair beside him, looking more tired than Liam's ever seen him.

"On your left," he croaks, and Niall jumps at the noise.

"Payno!" he shouts, jumping to his feet. He looks like he wants to hug Liam but isn't sure how to do it without hurting him. "Fuck, we weren't sure if you'd--"

"How did I get here?" 

Niall shrugs. "Louis and I found you washed up on the shore of the Potomac."

"Looking like shit, I might add." Louis strolls into the room, two coffees in his hand, and hands one to Niall. "Welcome back to the land of the living."

"But how did I get to the shore?"

Louis glances at Niall. "I don't know. You were just there."

Liam stares at the ceiling. It doesn't matter. He already knows what the answer is.

***

If there's one thing ghosts are good at, it's disappearing. Once he's healed from the battle, Liam spends all his waking hours trying to find Harry. It's not like he's got anything better to do, since S.H.I.E.L.D has been dissolved.

He enlists Louis' help in getting Harry's files. He expects to have to wait a week or so, but the next day Louis shows up on his doorstep with a file and a warning that he may not like what he reads.

Louis is right. Reading what they did to Harry makes him nauseous. He channels it into anger, and he hunts down everyone affiliated with the Winter Soldier project. It scares him how much he wants to hurt them, how little he thinks about killing them... but he can't. Seeing Harry again brought him back. He didn't even realize the dark place he had been in until Harry came back. And now that he's found his humanity, he's not going to lose it again.

So he hunts down the people, and he makes sure they get a fair interrogation. Liam and Niall help, and although he tells them they don't have to, he's grateful for their presence. He's not sure if his newfound resolve would hold up if he didn't have them there to calm him down.

After a month, he's out of leads. The only thing there is to do is return to the past. The houses they grew up in. Their favorite neighborhood haunts. The apartment they said they'd buy one day if they won the lottery.

And then one day it hits him. He knows Harry just as well as he knows himself, he knows their shared history, he knows what Harry would find important... but Harry doesn't know himself anymore. When Liam was first woken up from the ice, with all the memories of an old world colliding with the present, all he had wanted was to go back.

There's only one place Harry can be.

He doesn't tell Niall or Louis. He's afraid that speaking the thought aloud will jinx it, somehow, or that they would insist on coming with him. They still call Harry the Winter Soldier, and Liam corrects them every time with a firm "Harry. It's _Harry._ " He pretends he can't see the pointed look they share whenever this happens. He knows they don't mean anything. They're worried about him, that's all. But Harry saved him, he _knows_ it, and it just doesn't make sense that he would save Liam only to try to kill him again.

So he goes to the museum alone one Saturday. He goes to their exhibit, sits in front of the "Howling Commandos: Harry Styles" screen, and he waits. He sits there until closing time, and the next day, he goes back. After a week, the regular guards greet him with a little nod when they pass by. He can probably recite the narrator's speech by heart.

It's a Tuesday when he feels that tingling sensation on the back of his neck, like he's being watched. When he stands up and turns around, there's a shadow in the corner near the Exit sign. A ghost.

It's strange seeing him in a dark gray hoodie and jeans instead of a uniform or weighed down with weapons. It's painful to realize that the Harry he's used to now is a soldier.

"Harry," he breathes. He takes a few steps toward him, his palms opened up in front of him to show he's unarmed. Or maybe just in supplication. Harry's eyes are wary, flitting side to side.

_He's still in combat mode_ , Liam realizes. _Keeping his back to the exit._ So he stops a few feet away, giving Harry the space to run if he feels he has to. "I've been looking for you."

He almost thinks Harry is going to maintain the Winter Soldier's silent, still efficiency, but then he nods, a jerky movement that is startling.

"I know. I've been hiding."

Harry's voice has always been deep but it's different now, raspier, like he's been yelling for hours and his voice is just now coming back.

Liam frowns. "H, I'm not going to hurt you."

He shakes his head, looks again toward the exit.

_Why are you so afraid of me?_ Liam wants to ask him, wishes they could just be open and honest like they've always been, but he knows the situation calls for some delicacy. He wishes Niall were there to tell him how to act.

"We've been hunting down the people responsible for doing this to you," he say, then backtracks. "Louis and Niall and me, I mean. Louis is--"

"The one I shot," Harry says dully. "The clever one."

"Uh, right. And Niall--"

"The blond one. I threw him off the carrier."

"Well, yes," Liam says weakly. "But they're fine! And they're not mad, I promise! I-- _we_ \-- just want to help you."

Harry's been staring down at the ground, but he looks up at this last part. "You can't help me," he says harshly, and with that, he turns around and takes long strides toward the exit.

Liam reacts instinctively, reaching forward and grabbing Harry's arm to stop him. In less than a second, Harry's got him shoved up against a wall, his metal arm pinning Liam back. His breath is coming in erratic gasps, his eyes are huge and terrified, and when Liam realizes what's happening, he stills.

_He's not scared of me. He's scared_ for _me._

There's something bubbling up inside him, but he's not sure if he's going to laugh or cry.

"I trust you, H." He says it calm and serious, looking right into Harry's eyes so he can see how much he means it. His gaze moves across Liam's face, but what he's searching for, Liam doesn't know.

"Why?" This bleakness doesn't sound right coming out of Harry's mouth. He presses his arm harder against Liam's chest, and it's starting to hurt but Liam doesn't dare move.

"Because you're my best friend." He says it like it's the simplest fact in the world, because it _is._

But Harry looks away. "Not anymore. I'm not-- I'm not him anymore."

"Yes, you are. They made you think you aren't, but you are."

Harry shakes his head furiously. "I'm not the same Harry you knew."

"You _are,_ though," Liam insists. "I read your files, okay? I know what they did to you. They messed with your head. I _know_ that. But you're still my Harry."

Harry's quiet for a moment, and then he lifts his hand and lets his fingers trace Liam's cheek. He wants to close his eyes, but he forces himself to keep them open.

"I hurt you," Harry says, his voice soft. His eyes are dark, even with the dim lighting in the exhibit. He lets his hand fall, cups Liam's jaw. His cuts have healed by now, but certain spots are still tender, and he winces even at Harry's gentle touch. Harry nods slowly to himself, then takes his hand off Liam's face to jerk his thumb behind him. "He would have died before hurting you."

Liam looks where he's pointing, even though he doesn't need to. Harry stares back at him from the projector screen, clean-cut and in his uniform, a dimpled half-smile on his face.

"You didn't know what you were doing," Liam finally says.

Harry laughs, but it's not the shrill hyena screech that always used to make Liam crack up, too. This laugh is low, humorless. Angry.

"I did, though," he says, spitting the words out. "I _did._ I'm not a-- a robot or something. I remembered you..."

His voice goes quiet and Liam knows he's thinking back to the bridge, to that moment when the Winter Soldier's mask slipped off and Harry peeked out from underneath, confused and scared.

"You remembered me," Liam breaths, and even though Harry is still pinning him to a wall, he can't help the smile growing on his face. "I _knew_ you did, the others thought I was--"

"I remembered you," he repeats dully, talking right over Liam as if he doesn't even hear him. "I remembered you, and they didn't plan for that. So they hurt me."

The smile slips off Liam's face instantly, because yes, he read the files on Harry after they pulled him out of a German winter and gave him a metal arm, but he had thought that was the end of it, he didn't known they had to reconditionhim, didn't know that the bridge incident would be something Harry got _punished_ for. "What did they do to you?" His voice is uneven when he asks.

"Everything," Harry murmurs. He's looking through Liam. "They starved me at first. They beat me. Then came electrocution. Freezing." His eyes are glassy, his metal arm pushing even harder against Liam's throat.

"Harry!" he gasps, and Harry comes back to the present. He eases the pressure a bit but keeps his arm against Liam's neck.

"They tortured me in every way you can imagine, and then in ways only monsters can imagine. And still, _still,_ there was you. I _remembered_ you." Harry's eyes are boring into his, and Liam is alarmed to see how cold they look. "So they punished me. They started over. They _took_ you from me." His voice breaks along with his resolve, and then he's slumping to the floor at Liam's feet, running his fingers through his hair in agitation. "They took _everything_ from me!"

He hovers above Harry, not sure what to do. His instinct is to gather him into his arms and shield him from everything bad in the universe, to make sure nothing ever touches them again... but it's too late for that now, and anyway, he isn't sure this Harry wants Liam to touch him.

So he slides down against the wall until he's sitting next to him, making sure to keep his body at least an inch away, and he says, "I'm here, I'm still here." As a reminder, and a promise.

"I knew what I was doing." Harry's eyes are desperate when he turns them on Liam. "That's what you don't understand. I know all about you. Brave, noble Captain America who always puts everyone before him, who put his life in danger to save his friend. So you couldn't understand."

Liam stares at him. He doesn't understand, but he _wants_ to. "Try me."

"They tried and they tried, but they couldn't take you out of my head. So instead, they took away who you were to me. And then they sent me out to kill you."

He stares down at his shaking hands. He looks so small, so fragile, that Liam forgets himself. He reaches out to take Harry's hand, but he's barely grazed his palm when Harry snatches it away and clenches it into a fist against his chest.

"Don't you get it?" he shouts, his voice echoing in the empty hall, and Liam is grateful that the guards tend to leave him alone in here most of the time. "I knew you were someone to me, and instead of trying to figure out who, I tried to kill you!"

"Harry," Liam pleads, trying to sound soothing, "it wasn't--"

"I didn't want to remember, it hurt so much, but I couldn't _help_ it. I remembered you, and all the people I killed..." His voice is wet and and fragile. "Why didn't they just let me die?"

He had opened his mouth to reassure Harry, but he snaps it shut now. He's been where Harry is before, when they threw him into a world he didn't belong to. Harry doesn't need reassurance. He needs to know he's not alone.

Liam takes a deep breath. He doesn't want to remember, either, but he has to. For Harry. "I still dream about the first man I killed. I never told you about this. Because I was scared of what you would think of me. I didn't tell anyone, actually."

He can see himself running through enemy fire on the projector behind Harry and he watches it for a moment, remembering. "They were all so proud of me for getting you and the other men from your squad back home with no casualties, but they didn't even think about the enemy's side."

He glances at Harry, but there's no indication that he's even listening. He's just sitting there, his knees drawn up to his chest, his head bent down so his hair falls over his face. _Still, at least he's not running._

"The kid was probably only a couple years older than me," he continues, looking away from Harry and down at his hands in his lap instead. "He was shooting and they had taken you and I didn't know if you were even still alive. I panicked. I shot him. And when I realized, when I went to look at him, he was..." He sucks in a deep breath.

It's harder than he thought it would be. He feels a swift, sharp remorse for Harry, dealing with his memories alone and being beaten both mentally and physically for them.

"I think that's when I really understood who I was. When I killed that kid. I wanted to go to war so badly, because I thought it meant saving people back home. And sure, in the end maybe my actions did help save some people. But it hurt people, too. I killed that kid, and in a way, I killed myself, too. Or who I was, at least." He heaves a sigh and rubs at his eye. "Because what they never tell you is that killing never gets easier. You just get harder, colder, and then making the decision gets easier."

Harry looks up. His eyes are dry now. "Is this supposed to make me feel better?"

"No. It's supposed to make you understand." He reaches into his pocket, and Harry tenses, tracking every movement of his hand. Liam slows, keeping his eyes on Harry, then pulls out a tiny photograph that's yellowed with age and curling around the edges.

Harry hesitates, but then his hand darts out to take it. His eyes search the photo, drinking in the details like he's staring at a long-lost friend and not a total stranger. And Liam watches him, because having this Harry here is like coming back to the home you used to live in-- the rooms look the same, but there are all these new posters on the walls, and your body still remembers the twists and turns but the furniture has been rearranged and you keep running into it. He knows it's not right  for him to make a divide between this Harry and the old one in his head-- isn't that exactly what he's telling Harry _not_ to do?-- but it's hard when the Harry he knew was bright and clumsy and wore a constant, wicked smile. How can he reckon that Harry with this one, who sits too still, who moves too sharp, whose hardened eyes look at Liam like he's a puzzle and not a certainty?

"This is the kid you killed," Harry finally says.

Liam quickly looks away when Harry's gaze flickers up from the photo. He's not sure why he feels guilty.

"Yeah. The little girl he's holding is his daughter. Jesy. She was two."

Harry frowns and looks back down at the photo, then shakes his head and tosses it at Liam. It floats softly to the ground between them. Liam thinks he can see a shininess in Harry's eyes, but in a flash it evaporates and turns to anger.

"Why are you showing me this?"

Liam picks up the photo. The little girl has the biggest eyes. She's looking at her dad the way only kids can, with so much trust it scares Liam.

"She's nearly 80 now," he says, calmly putting the photo back in his pocket. "Her wife's name is Krista. They've got a son named after Jesy's dad. I promised myself I would find her after the war. It took me a bit longer than I expected, but it's the first thing I did when they woke me up. I took the first Greyhound I could get a ticket for to Pennsylvania, and I got to her house at 10 p.m." He smiles ruefully. "Didn't think that through, really. Probably scared her half to death."

"You went to see her?" Harry shakes his head slightly, like he's been presented with a particularly difficult math problem. "Why?"

"Promised myself I would, didn't I?" He shrugs. "I had to. I remember she took one look at me and invited me right in, before I even said a word."

"And then?" Harry leans forward on his knees, his palms resting on his legs, his eyes dark and intense like everything is hinging resting on the end of this story.

And who knows? Maybe it is.

"She made me a cup of tea," he recalls. "And then I told her everything. More than I had to, even. I told her what I did to her dad. I told her about everyone else I killed during the war. I told her about--" He takes a deep breath and glances at Harry. "About you."

"What did she do?"

"It was almost like she expected me to come, like she'd just been waiting for me ever since the war ended. She sat there the entire time, didn't say a word." He laughs a bit. "Well, I didn't really give her a chance, I suppose. But when I finished, I was sitting there crying my eyes out, and she just... she said, 'It's okay,' and she gave me this huge hug. She hugged me until I stopped crying, and then she thanked me, and that was it."

"That was it," Harry repeats. "And then, what, you were fine after that?"

"No, not exactly." He pauses. He's never really sat and analyzed this before, but he needs Harry to understand. "I don't think I've been fine since you disappeared. It's more like... Okay, we all have choices, right? I made the choice to kill that man, and I have to live with that. Jesy made the choice to forgive me. HYDRA made the choice to try to turn you into something you're not. And you made the choice to remember."

Harry blinks several times, like he used to when he didn't want to cry, and suddenly he looks much younger.

"You could have killed me," he continues. "Like you said, you had a mission. But you chose not to. You made that choice. And that means so much more than anything else you've done in the past."

"I didn't--" Harry murmurs, the words thick in his throat.

"You pulled me out of the water," Liam says. "I would have drowned."

"It wasn't a choice," Harry says, frustrated. "I-- I couldn't kill you. I didn't know why but I couldn't do it."

"And thanks for that, by the way." Liam smiles at him, but Harry's not looking at him. He's staring back at the projection on the wall, at the old Harry.

"You loved him, right?"

It's such a sudden question that it takes Liam aback. "I-- yeah, I did. I do."

"I'm not him anymore," he says, and the words are tinged with sadness. "I don't think I'll ever be able to go back."

Liam nods. This time, when he places his hand carefully on top of Harry's, he doesn't pull away. "So don't go back. Go forward."

Harry looks down, considers Liam's hand on his. "What if I can't? What if I don't want to?" There's something like a challenge in his voice when he asks.

Liam shrugs. "I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want to do. You're not under anyone's control anymore. Any choice you make from here on out is yours, and you have to live with that."

He nods to himself slowly, and then he turns back to the projection, makes sure he's not looking Liam in the eyes. "Tell me about myself?"

So Liam does. He talks about the day they first met, the way Harry pulled him off the ground and steadied him and what they talked about on the way home. He talks about the fireworks, and the times they spent on the pier. He talks about his parents' funeral, and the way Harry made him smile again by teasing him about the suit he'd borrowed that hung off his scrawny shoulders. He talks about the war, and the Howling Commandos, and how dark everything felt the day Harry fell.

He tells Harry stuff he probably already remembers, but Harry just listens, nods, and occasionally asks a question. They're there until the museum closes, and then they stand up and walk outside. Harry's visibly stiffer out here, more uncomfortable. It's like the museum was some sort of space outside of time, a safe space. Maybe that's why Liam liked it so much.

Harry doesn't say anything, but when Liam asks if he wants to come again tomorrow he's nodding before he's even finished the question.

They meet there every day for the next week. Harry never goes home with Liam, although Liam offers every time they leave the museum. He's not sure where Harry's staying over night, and the one time he'd asked Harry had gotten fidgety and wouldn't answer him. So he backs off, because as long as Harry keeps agreeing to meet with him, he's still got him in his life.

Eventually Harry agrees to go with Liam to Niall's group. It's a tribute to Niall's professionalism that he doesn't start gaping in the middle of a speech when Liam walks in with Harry. His eyes widen, but he quickly looks back to the rest of the group.

Harry sits there quietly, and when it's over, he immediately turns to Liam and whispers, "Can we come again tomorrow?"

"'Course we can," Liam says, and then: "Why don't we go talk to Niall?"

Harry freezes and gets that guarded look in his eyes, a look Liam is quickly getting accustomed to. 

"We don't have to," he says quickly. "Just, you know, if you want. He's one of my best friends." He surprises himself when he says it, but then he realizes how true it is; he wouldn't have been able to exist in this world if it hadn't been for Niall and Louis, and it's important to him that they get along with Harry.

Harry bites at the inside of his lip in uncertainty, but then, miraculously, he nods.

"Liam, long time no see!" Niall says when they approach, a big smile on his face. "And Harry." He extends his hand, still smiling. "Thanks for coming. I'm Niall."

Liam could kiss him for being so normal, for not being mad at Liam for not mentioning he found Harry, for treating Harry like a person and not calling him the Winter Soldier. But then, what else did he expect? This is Niall, easy-going and eternally unfazed, whether it's Captain America and the Black Widow showing up on his doorstep or a former HYDRA assassin.

Harry looks at Liam like he's not sure what to do, but then he shakes Niall's hand. "Harry Styles."

"Good to meet you," Niall says, and Liam hopes Harry can tell how much he means it. "Liam, when are we getting the old team back together?"

He knows Niall's asking innocently, but he still feels guilty for not getting in touch with them sooner. He had gotten caught up in trying to find Harry, and then once he _had_ he wanted to make sure Harry was... well, ready. He remembers after he'd been woken up, all he wanted to do was lock himself in his apartment for a month. But Harry's always been tougher than him, even if Liam was the one who always used to get into fights.

"Maybe later this week, if Louis' free," he tells Niall. "What's he been up to, anyway?" He feels so out of the loop now, especially since S.H.I.E.L.D has been destroyed and he doesn't have anyone to report to anymore. He realizes with a pang how much he's missed Louis.

Niall snorts. "Turn on a television once in awhile. I don't know who gave him the PR job, but he's been doing interviews and press conferences about this whole mess. Never heard so many censored curse words in my life."

It's an entertaining picture, Louis in a suit and battling with reporters.

"I'm sure he'd like a break from that, then."

"Oh, I don't know. He seems to enjoy it," Niall says. "But we should definitely get dinner or something soon. And Harry, it's good to finally meet you, man. You're always welcome at the meetings whenever you want to come."

"Thank you," Harry says. "And... I'm sorry for throwing you off that helicarrier."

Niall shrugs. "I've had worse. Don't worry about it."

Liam tries not to make a big deal out of the small smile Harry gives Niall, but he can't resist pulling Niall into a hug.

"Thank you," he says, his voice quiet so Harry won't hear.

Niall squeezes him tight. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I am," he says, and he thinks it's maybe the first time he's meant it in years.

***

Louis is more of a wild card. Liam texts him first rather than risking springing Harry on a surprised and potentially still-resentful-about-being-shot Louis.

>      _"found h. hes not trying 2 kill ppl anymore. if I bring him to dinner thursday nite do u promise 2 be nice????"_

He just gets three robots and a winking emoji back, which doesn't do much to reassure him.

But when they show up at the dubious hole-in-the-wall joint Niall has picked out, Louis stands up to greet them with a grin and widespread arms.

"If it isn't young Liam and his long-lost friend!" he says, loud enough for the few other people eating in the restaurant to turn their heads and stare. "I'm surprised you two made it here without throwing out your backs or breaking a hip."

Liam's first instinct is to urge Louis to quiet down, but experience has taught him that it will only make him louder. So he just tugs him into a hug and whispers, "Go easy on him" in his ear.

Either Louis didn't hear him, or he decided to ignore him, because he turns to Harry immediately after and says, "You didn't bring a gun this time, did you?"

Harry looks at Liam, startled, then looks back at Louis. "Um...no. Sorry about shooting you."

Louis beams. "Well, aren't you a polite ex-assassin?" He doesn't give Harry a chance to respond. "Shall we eat?"

Dinner goes surprisingly well. Louis keeps the sarcastic comments to a minimum for once, and if Harry is a little quiet at first, he seems to quickly get used to Louis' particular brand of humor. By the time they finish eating, none of them are ready to go home. Maybe Liam's being overly optimistic, but he'd even say Harry is enjoying himself.

Until Louis asks, "So where are you staying these days, Harold? End of Liam's bed?" and Harry goes stone-faced.

Louis blinks. "What did I say?"

Niall gives a nervous laugh, then picks up a menu. "Does anyone want dessert?"

"I just asked where he lives!"

"Just drop it," Liam says in an undertone, but then Harry says, "I've been sleeping in the park" and everyone turns to look at him.

Liam isn't sure what he expected, really. He doubted Harry had found himself a five-star hotel room, but he'd been so uncomfortable when Liam asked where he was going at night that he didn't want to push it. Now, though, he feels a seed of guilt in his chest. He should have insisted Harry come with him that first night.

Louis looks around the table. "He's joking, right?"

Harry stares down at his empty plate, refusing to meet their gazes.

"You can stay with me, H. You know that, right?" Liam asks, his voice soft.

Harry shakes his head, still resolutely looking down.

"You can't sleep in a park, Harry," Niall says.

Louis nods vigorously. "I'm pretty sure there's a law against it, actually."

"Nobody's made me leave yet," Harry shoots back.

"Harry, come on," Liam says. "I already told you, you can stay with--"

"I'm not going to put you in danger again!" His voice is nearly a shout. He quiets down when he realizes the other customers are looking at them again, but he doesn't get any less fierce. "You think they're going to let me go that easily? You think we can just go back to how things were and have dinner every week with your friends and the world is just going to let that happen? They're going to come after me, and when it happens, I'm not going to let them hurt you, too!"

It's the most Harry's said since Liam found him again, and the effort seems to exhaust him. 

"Harry, I already told you that HYDRA is gone," Liam says, calm and slow. The last thing he wants from tonight is for Harry to disappear on him, to retreat back behind the wall Liam's been carefully coaxing him out from for the past month. "We hunted down the rest of its members and they're locked away now."

"Cut off one head and two more will grow," Harry says bitterly.

Liam shoots Niall a helpless look, silently willing him to say something to diffuse the situation, but then Louis lets his fork drop onto his plate with a clatter.

"Take it from someone who knows--" he says, staring at Harry until he's forced to look back. "You can't spend your whole life running. Looking behind your shoulder all the time isn't going to stop anyone from hurting you or the people you love, so you may as well enjoy the time you have now before it's gone."

It sounds bleak and even harsh to Liam, but Harry gives Louis a steady, considering look, ex-assassin to ex-spy, and then he gives a single nod, and all the tension goes out of his shoulders.

"And anyway, have you seen Liam? They don't call him the Payne Train for nothing."

"Do they call you that?" Harry asks, biting back a smile.

"No," he says firmly, at the same time Louis says, "Absolutely."

And it's as easy as that. Harry moves in with Liam that night.

Except, of course, that it's not easy. Not at all. He gives Harry his bed and sets himself up on the couch with a pillow and a blanket, but the very first night he's woken up by Harry screaming. When Liam races into the room, he's sitting up in bed, trembling and glassy-eyed.

"Sorry," he croaks.

"You don't need to apologize," Liam murmurs. He stands there, hovering uncertainly as Harry's breathing calms, because he knows what he wants to do but he's not going to push Harry, he's not going to do anything unless he's asked.

"'m okay, you can go back to sleep," he says finally.

Liam hesitates. "You're sure?"

He nods, and Liam doesn't believe him, but he goes. He goes.

It happens again the next night, and the night after that. Each time Liam runs in and stands near the door, waiting for Harry to tell him he's fine. On the fourth night, when he turns around and turns off the light, Harry stops him.

"Li?"

It's the first time he's heard that nickname in decades, and it freezes him in his tracks.

"Yeah, H?"

"Will you stay?"

The room is too dark for him to be able to see Harry's face, but he can hear the quiet desperation in his voice, the shaky nervousness in the question, the shame of having to ask it.

"Always," he says. "Always, you know that." He crawls into bed with Harry and holds him until they fall asleep.

He never sleeps on the couch after that. It's not something they talk about, but Liam puts away the extra blanket and pillow and moves back into his room, and when they wake up in the morning he can almost pretend they're kids again, curled up together like the world outside can't touch them. The nightmares still happen, but as time goes on, they come less and less frequently. Sometimes it's just screaming, and when Liam shakes Harry to wake him up, he's just sheepish and out of breath. Sometimes it's a low groan, like he's in pain, and Harry mostly seems relieved when he wakes up from those. The worst is when he talks, when he's back in the past and strapped to some twisted operating room and he's pleading with them to stop, telling them he'll do anything, he'll kill anyone, just _please, no._ When he wakes up from those, he never wants to talk. He just buries his face in Liam's shirt and cries silently until he's too tired to keep his eyes open.

The first time Liam witnesses one of those nightmares, he tentatively suggests that they go see somebody about it, but Harry looks so panicked at the idea that he doesn't suggest it again. Anyway, it is surprisingly difficult to find therapists who are trained to deal with brainwashed soldiers from World War II.

Still, he does need to talk to _someone._ Liam says as much one night when they're eating takeout on the couch.

"I talk to _you,_ " Harry says, an offended look on his face.

"Not about the nightmares," Liam points out. "You don't talk to me about those."

Harry looks away. "You don't need to relive those with me."

"You don't have to do it on your own."

"I'm not doing it on my own," he says. "I have Niall and Louis. Isn't that why you introduced us?"

Liam gapes at him. "What are you talking about?"

"I've been going to all of Niall's groups, and Louis and I have lunch a lot," Harry says. "I like them." He must see the hurt on Liam's face because he quickly adds, "I asked them not to tell you. I don't want you to have to worry about me all the time." He shrugs. "And I didn't want to distract you. Louis told me you were searching for S.H.I.E.L.D members who weren't corrupt. I want to get better so I can come help."

Now that he thinks about it, he should have known this was happening. Niall and Louis had been asking him about Harry more often than normal, and for his part, Harry _has_ been getting better. It's not just the nightmares, either; he's stopped jumping at loud noises, losing track of what he's saying, and getting that distant look in his eyes. He's even starting to talk like he used to, initiating conversation without being prompted and speaking in longer sentences. He'd thought it was time healing him, but maybe it's friendship, too. Liam feels guilty all of a sudden, for going out so much and leaving him alone at the apartment. The cleanup work he's doing is important, but it's not more important than Harry.

"I'm sorry I haven't been around," he says. "I should've--"

"No, that's not what I meant," Harry protests. "I just-- this is something I have to do. I have to work on myself, just like you have to see S.H.I.E.L.D through to the end." He gives Liam a tentative smile. "This is my new mission."

Liam calls Niall the next day, before Harry's woken up.

"Do you think Harry's going to be okay?"

"Mornin' to you, too, Liam."

"Sorry," he says quickly, properly chagrined. "Good morning. But do you?"

"He's been through a lot," Niall admits. "But he's strong. I can already see him improving."

"Good," Liam breathes. "Good." He knows Niall isn't a professional therapist, really, but he's the closest they've got, and he knows better than most people what they've been through.

When Liam calls Louis next to make him promise to tell him if there's anything seriously wrong with Harry, he can practically hear Louis rolling his eyes.

"As if I'm going to be the first to know if something's wrong with him."

"Well, maybe," Liam mutters, and he tries not to sound upset, he _does_ , but Louis catches it anyway.

"Are you _jealous_?" he demands.

"No, I just thought he would know that he can talk to me, too." He knows he sounds petulant, and he waits for Louis to call him out on it, but he just hears a quiet sigh across the line.

"He loves you, Liam," Louis finally says. "He thinks you've already suffered enough at his hands. That's why he came to me and Niall."

_Oh,_ he thinks. "Oh." 

"Yeah."

"Okay," he says in a small voice.

***

The next time Harry has a nightmare, he sits up straight in bed.

"Harry?" Liam mumbles sleepily, lifting up his arm so Harry can tuck himself underneath, but he doesn't move.

"I don't want to," he says in a hoarse voice. "I don't want to remember anymore, Liam. I can't--"

Liam sits up, too, all his exhaustion disappearing at the look on Harry's face. "I know," he says. "I know. C'mere." This time he lets Liam put his arm around him and pull him closer, but he's still not looking at him, just staring out at the dark room.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He shakes his head, his brow furrowed. "I don't want to remember that."

Liam nods. "Okay. What do you want to remember?"

It's something they do sometimes when Harry can't fall back asleep-- he'll ask Liam for a memory, and Liam will remind him of the time they went skinny dipping in the Potomac, or the time they got stuck on top of the Ferris Wheel at Coney Island, or the time Liam entered a hotdog eating contest just because Harry dared him to even though he hates hotdogs. It's like putting Harry back together, piece by piece, giving him the memories that were stolen from him.

So when Liam asks, "What do you want to remember?" he expects Harry to say, "Tell me again about your fourteenth birthday."

What he doesn't expect is for Harry to take a deep breath like he's steeling himself up.

What he doesn't expect is for Harry to whisper, "This."

What he doesn't expect is Harry's breath ghosting over his, Harry pausing an inch from Liam in a silent question.

Liam nods, and then it's Harry pulling Liam closer, it's the coolness of his metal hand on the back of Liam's neck, it's the warmth of their lips chasing memories together, it's an eternity that's over too soon.

"I don't know if I remember that exactly," Liam says, his breath coming fast. "Remind me again?"

And Harry smiles.

***

Slowly but surely, Harry gets better. The changes aren't always noticeable. It's a lot of little things, like his smiles coming more confidently, like his eyes losing that hard edge, like the genuine joy that springs to his face when Liam brings home a stray puppy he found in an alley.

And then one day, nine months after they first met at the museum, Liam wakes up and smells something baking.

He doesn't bother getting dressed, just shuffles into the kitchen and swallows a yawn.

Harry groans when he sees him. "You weren't supposed to wake up this early! I wanted to surprise you."

There are four empty plates, four glasses of juice, a bowl full of some pumpkin-y, cinnamon concoction on the counter, and something that smells like chocolate chip cookies in the oven.

"Sorry." Liam grins. "I was hungry." He walks behind Harry and hooks his head over his shoulder, peeking over at what he's mixing.

"What are you making?" he asks, and when Harry turns to answer him he reaches over his shoulder, swipes a finger through the batter, and sticks it in his mouth.

"Heeeeey." Harry frowns.

At their feet, the little pup they named Loki yaps and looks up at Harry expectantly. Harry had taken up training him and said he was a fast learner, but Liam had spotted him trying unsuccessfully to get the dog to sit for ten minutes before relenting and giving him three treats anyway.

"What's with the extra plates?"

"Niall and Liam are coming for breakfast, too." Liam reaches to get another taste of the batter, but he gets swatted with the spatula. "If you don't eat everything!"

"But it tastes so good!"

"It'll taste better when it's cooked," he says, and he holds his spatula up in a warning until Liam surrenders and backs away with his hands up.

Harry puts him to work kneading bread, and when Louis shows up with Niall and they laugh at Liam for being covered in flour, they're put on dish duty. It's nearly eleven by the time they sit down to eat, and Liam's stomach is grumbling.

"Is it good? Do you like it?" Harry asks anxiously around the table every time one of them tries a bite of something new.

"Is he going to do this the whole meal?" Louis asks, giving Harry a pointed look.

"Sorry, sorry," Harry says, but then Niall takes a bite of banana bread and Harry blurts out, "Is it too dry?"

Louis groans and throws a blueberry at him, and a mini food fight ensues, with everyone laughing and shouting and Loki running around the table to snatch up every bit that falls to the ground.

When it's over and most of the food is either in their stomachs or on the floor, Liam goes to the closet to get a towel to clean up the remnants on the floor that Loki's too stuffed to eat. He pauses in the doorway before coming back into the kitchen, taking in the scene: Niall pulling a piece of bread out of Harry's hair and chewing on it thoughtfully, Louis lecturing Harry about proper food fight etiquette, and Harry nodding seriously. He spots Liam watching from over Louis' shoulder and a beatific smile blossoms on his face. Liam smiles back at him and puts the towel on the counter. They can clean up later. For now, it's a Saturday and they've got nothing to do but be together.

So maybe they're a strange group. Two super-soldiers from the 1900s, an ex-spy, and a Falcon with a stolen suit.

But they're family. _His_ family.

And they're going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are always appreciated, and you can find the Tumblr post for this story [here](http://ineffablelouis.tumblr.com/post/129462735658/what-stays-and-what-fades-away-liam-payneharry) :)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been my tiny child for the past couple months, so I'm so happy I got to share it! Thanks for reading, and please leave kudos/comments down below :)
> 
> The tumblr post for this fic is [here](http://ineffablelouis.tumblr.com/post/129462735658/what-stays-and-what-fades-away-liam-payneharry), feel free to reblog it!


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